


Shadowplay

by Rouqe, Shruikanceta



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Dream Sex, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Masturbation, Mind Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Shadows used for inappropriate purposes, Teacher-Student Relationship, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-01-27 09:34:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12578776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rouqe/pseuds/Rouqe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shruikanceta/pseuds/Shruikanceta
Summary: The Master of Shadows crossed his arms over his chest almost amused by the work his shadows displayed for him. “This is an incentive. Do not look away! Show me your face, Kayn".But the assassin disobeyed, his jaw tense as his head hung between his shoulders. The streaks of hair around his face were like a shield, hiding him from the unforgiving eyes of his Master. He couldn’t show him weakness, he couldn’t show the truth progressively revealed with each caress. The obscene game stirred the obscured remembrance of a dream, like the sands at the bottom of the sea roused by currents. This was a tide of denial, of stoicism and discipline, he had accepted some things were unreachable. All his master could regard of him was his talent, skill, prowess, nothing more.Kayn had seen this before, somewhere, in the darkest recesses of his soul.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This huge depravation was born after dark nights of roleplay between partners of even darker souls. 
> 
> We expect you enjoy it as much as we did writting it, and will continue to do so in future chapters.

The yellow light of the lamps flickered dimly in the rooms through the walls, guiding his path even if Kayn obsessively knew his way. Very few times he had visited the Master’s private chamber, no acolyte dared to approach without a significant reason. All feared interrupting Zed’s meditation as if it was almost a crime.

He finally stopped before the large double door where the shadows stirred and whispered like jealous lovers. It was a sanctuary and at the same time, the silent witness of Zed’s ascension. The evidence still remained written in Kusho’s dried blood staining the wooden floor and walls.

Even Kayn could sense the unrest and the haunting atmosphere of the room, it grated on his consciousness, but compared to Rhaast’s abrasive presence, Kusho’s grief was a soothing darkness.

That evening, Rhaast had been confined to an ornamented weapon rack in the loneliness of his room. He wouldn’t interfere with the meeting Kayn so eagerly expected.

It was evident Zed had already been informed, yet Kayn planned to provide a detailed report, his greatness would be recognized in the exquisitely precise murder. It had been his first and easy mission after claiming the darkin, and the results had been nothing but impeccable. Pride flowed around him like an aura as he ventured into the darkened depths of the Monastery.

The shōji door slid and closed behind him with a foreboding click. Ahead, the shadows floated like a funerary veil around the sitting figure. The fragrance of the incense always gave that room a mystic, almost hallowed environment. Two paper lamps glowed gently in the corners as darkness concealed the dried blood stains, at times the red gleamed vividly as if it still poured out of Kusho’s headless body, like an ominous human-shaped mound.

Zed’s figure was sitting on his knees in the exact centre of the room, with his back facing the door. Immobile, like a sinister statue clad in red and metal, he didn’t even raise his head when Kayn entered, but the lights flickered with the presence of the acolyte. The Master knew he was there.

Kayn approached fearlessly, comforted by the shadows from a young age he had learned to embrace them, and Zed was like a sinner saint in his forbidden altar. The assassin bowed with reverence, gathering his fist and his palm before his bare chest. Even after three months of his mission in Vindor, the salute still felt strange in his inhuman claw. Uncomfortable, improper, almost as if he no longer owed anyone that respect. Now meant to lead and conquer, instead of following.

“Your orders have been fulfilled, the vastayan chieftain is no more. I have returned with the full report on the mission…” Kayn’s gaze rose and fixed on his Master even as he bowed.

A soft rattle was the first response he got as Zed slowly raised his head. A whispered sigh escaped through his mask’s slits, strangely deep as if it was hollow inside.

“Were there any casualties?”, he asked, cold and unfeeling. His voice was flat and didn’t reveal any of his thoughts.

“Only the necessary ones,” Kayn assured. “As few as the ones who dared stand in my way. Shadows exposed their weakness, fear controlled them.” The words tasted sweet like his victory, even if Zed had not turned to face him, he knew he was pleased with the results. Perfection was near, soon he would be Chosen to succeed him.

The Master of Shadows took some moments to talk, but when he did, it was with a firm: “Good".

He then changed his position, turning around to face Kayn without getting up. The armour rattled after him, but not much as if it didn’t dare to make a sound in that cursed place. Two more lights added to the darkness of the room: Zed’s eyes, of a vibrant red, visible through the helmet like living fires.

“Come closer", he ordered. A strange order, infrequent. Zed usually didn’t allow people to get close to him unless in combat.

The proud gleam across Kayn’s eyes changed, disconcerted. His master had assured there always existed an almost impossible breach between them, like a dark sun above the mortals. But now, he was inviting him to approach. Could it be possible he could now be seen as an equal? He obeyed, his body almost guided by the invisible strings of expectation.

“Sit”. Zed accompanied the command with a gesture, pointing at the space in front of him. Then, he let both of his hands rest on his knees, with his back straight, imposing and solemn.

“I know you want to succeed me”. His statement was blunt, there was no sympathy in his voice. It was obvious that he didn’t think Kayn was capable of doing so.

The lights flickered again, though nothing else moved inside the chamber. The shadows remained thick.

Kayn faced him in return as he sat on his knees with his fists clenched at the sides of his body. His head bowed, a smile twisted in his shadowed lips.

“For how long have you known this, Master? Yes, I do… I am your destined heir.” Pride deafened his reason, for many nights he had convinced himself of his purpose, even more, after claiming Rhaast, the tool for his grand plan. It allowed him to ignore Zed’s hidden message.

“I have strived to become the Order’s finest. The One, the Chosen,” he was even tempted to claim he was very close to achieving his destiny, but he respected Zed, such words would have been unwise, too insolent even for him.

“That is all I seek, and I…,” Kayn looked up again, fierce, determined. “I will not disappoint you, Master.”

“Chosen. By who?", repeated Zed, and under his sharp words there was disdain. “I did not choose you to become my successor".

Zed stood up, and his silhouette seemed to eclipse all darkness. A heap of shadows, with two red eyes able to pierce through anything. Kayn felt as if icy fingers clutched his heart as if a noose tightened around his throat, but his body remained sitting under Zed’s shadow. It was the first time it felt so alien and intimidating.

“Destiny does not choose us”. The master’s hand closed in mid air into a fist. “We forge it with our own hands”.

He then pointed out at Kayn with a clawed finger, as if he was judging him, accusing him. When Zed talked again, his voice vibrated through the air like the sound of a low drum.

“You chose to surpass me. You strive for my recognition”.

The shadows stirred for just a second, almost unnoticed, like fish in a turbid pond.

“That would be my greatest achievement. I...-I have forged this destiny, the darkin is a mere obstacle!” The assassin’s eyes had widened slightly, anxious, strangely disturbed but certain in his conviction. His master would remember that unbreakable spirit which had allowed him to bend the shadows in new and ingenious techniques.

Though the second half of the question had a bizarre, confusing taste. “It was revealed to me the moment I accepted your hand at the Epool’s bloodied coast. You could see through my silence, master. And I will prove worthy, no one is more prepared…”. Even from his lower position, his head had risen with pride and determination.

“But are you prepared as much as you believe?” Zed’s words came like a lashing, causing Kayn’s hands to twitch and close into fists. Silence followed for a few seconds until the ninja took a sharp breath. “Prove to me that you are able to vanquish that foul entity. Prove to me that I was not mistaken when I picked you up from that field of corpses".

The Master took two steps, getting closer to Kayn, still kneeled down on the tatami floor.

“Do it… and I might reconsider some things".

The boy sucked his breath and lowered his head, staring blankly as his heartbeat reverberated inside his skull. His blood felt like a cold almost acid sludge in his veins, it was the first time he had been forced to swallow his pride, restraining his words in a compliant silence, it was unbearably difficult.

“Kayn". Once again, Zed’s voice cut the air with the edge of a command. “Look at me".

“Haven’t I… proved myself enough?” words rolled down his lips, strained as he struggled with each one of them, his discipline and self-control were being tested. Not even Rhaast had been able to darken his thoughts with one single sentence as Zed had, it was a power only conceded to his master.

Why? Why it wasn’t enough? Why was perfection insufficient? His mentor doubted him, he couldn’t accept it. He wouldn’t accept it.

“I have surpassed _everyone_ …, conquered all tests and trials.” Kayn looked up immediately, his human eye, his corrupted eye, both burned with the dark flare of indescribable emotions, defying the Master of Shadows. Perhaps the darkin had changed him beyond twisting flesh and bone, perhaps it had granted him the courage to challenge his mentor.

“Is this my final test? To defeat you in combat so I can no longer call you master?!” Kayn froze, wide-eyed, disbelieving his own words.

Zed remained silent and immobile for a while, and it created the illusion that he was a statue, demonic an ominous, judging all who implored at its feet. And then, a strange sound emerged from within. The unusual cadence of a chuckle.

“Foolish child”. He took one more step, approaching Kayn with the swiftness of a panther. “It is never enough. That is what Kusho taught me".

Shadows started circling around them, some tendrils even daring to caress Zed’s boots and to bite on Kayn’s ankles.

“To fight me. To defeat me… to kill me. Is that what you really desire?”

The shadows were hostile to the assassin for the first time in years, coiling like snakes, pronged fangs digging into his flesh with a chilling almost electric pain. But Kayn barely winced, the swift torment was nothing compared to the anxiety woven with resentment.

“No” the boy retorted mindlessly. He had denied it for so long, he had smothered those murderous ideas until they were nothing but a whisper in the depths of his mind, hidden, yet Rhaast could still feed on them.

“If a challenge is what you need to judge me, then a duel will be. I assassinate the weak, the unworthy…, those who fear. But never---my master”. He seized the emotions, controlling them, forcing them into silence. His fists hung lifelessly at the sides of his body, as his head lowered again, his face shadowed between his bangs. His demeanor revealed the absolute denial of the wish to usurp his master’s place.

“It doesn’t have to end like this, Zed…”

The shadows slithered and whispered, unsettled despite the Master’s apparent calm.

“No”, Zed conceded, and then, for a brief moment, his voice reverberated as two, overlapping each other in a strange echo. “ _You are not ready yet_ ”.

The shadows wrapped around Kayn’s arms, strangling them and leaving him exposed to Zed, who kept talking.

“If you tried to defeat me now, you would die, and your blood would mix with my master’s in this cursed place”. Under them, the floor was tainted and darkened by Kusho’s dried remains, old but still so present, indelible. “You are transparent before my eyes, Kayn. I know what you think, I know what you feel; I know your actions and your ambitions. Your very being belongs to me”.

The Master's words sparked a virulent tingling in his body, the idea of possession was alien but at the same time dangerously familiar. Kayn didn’t resist the shadows enveloping his body unpleasantly, crucifying him.

Zed squinted, and the red of his eyes almost disappeared behind the darkness inside his helmet.

“But I want you to admit it. What do you really desire?”

Zed’s words had an undeniable power over his pupil, making his mind vulnerable just as the shadows restrained his body like a sacrifice. Under the dim light of the paper lamps, the division between the pale smooth skin and the gruesomely tainted flesh was evident. The darkin corruption had stained the left arm, a red tissue, resistant and protected by pieces of a chitinous armor. It had devoured Kayn’s shoulder and stretched into his bare torso stopping like a thick scratch above his heart. Though his pectoral muscles were still preserved, toned with the finest training, marked by the two soft brown nipples.

“That is all I desire. To be worthy, the Chosen, that is my destiny”. ‘Your Chosen’ his thoughts added. Kayn glanced up, without fear as the shadows strained his body. He couldn't fear that darkness, it was part of his very soul.  

“Didn't you expect the same from your master?” his voice sounded strangely innocent as if he was still the lost and promising Noxian child.

Zed lowered his gaze, looking at the dried blood at his feet through the darkness.

“Yes”, he confessed, almost bitter. The Master of Shadows never liked to be reminded of his relationship with Kusho. “He cast me away… and died for that”.

He raised his eyes again, stabbing Kayn with his crimson gaze. It burned with determination and an old and subdued fury, like the embers of an extinguished fire.

“But I will not be like him. I will not commit the same mistakes”.

The shadows kept sliding over Kayn’s skin, cold, almost damp, soft like silk. Even though they still restrained his arms, their movements became slower, gentle. They caressed the boy’s neck and slithered down over his chest. They had an unnatural texture, alive like tongues of darkness. Wherever they touched, a trail of goosebumps sprang, a tickling blush spreading from their path. Kayn didn’t move, his mind didn’t understand the obsessive message within.

“I know there is more in your heart. Perhaps you have yet to realize”. Zed raised his hand almost as if he was about to pet Kayn, but he didn’t, his fingers ended up lingering in midair. “You will confess”. Kayn’s eyes could only widen, confused and lost.

“No”, the boy hissed through gritted teeth. “I have nothing to confess…, the shadows...Why.” Did his Master want him to admit he had even considered usurping his place? Murdering him?

“Lies”. Zed’s voice fell heavily and the shadows tightened around Kayn’s neck as punishment for daring to defy him. “I have already told you: your secrets lay bare before me. If you are not ready to admit the deepest desires in your heart… then I will rip them out of your throat”.

The dark tendrils moved again, one of them quickly crawling to Kayn’s face. It erratically rubbed over his checks and corrupted skin until it finally found his lips. It pressed between them, trying to pry them open and get inside the boy’s mouth with an unknown purpose. It squirmed over Kayn’s tongue and teeth, like fingers searching for something.

The shadows had never betrayed him, but now circled his body as shackles, licking his face like demons. The assassin had grown numb with dismay even if he tossed and turned his head in rejection, the tendrils became lewd, deranged as they defiled his mouth with a nauseating invasion. Kayn barely managed to twist his face aside, escaping them as he breathed, heaving, his pale countenance marked by a nascent blush. His will also attempted to bend the shadows, forcing them to release his body, but before Zed’s command, his orders were less than a pitiful plea to them.

“What is this… punishment”.

“This is no punishment”, Zed replied. Despite Kayn’s rejection, the shadows didn’t part from his body. They didn’t attempt to enter him again, but remained close to his face, caressing it like the soft brush of fingers.

Other tendrils worked on different areas of his body; his chest, his hips, his abdomen… Innumerable hands touching and exploring without shame, without considering Kayn’s rejection.

The Master of Shadows crossed his arms over his chest, almost amused by the work his shadows displayed for him. “This is an incentive. Do not look away! Show me your face, Kayn".

But the assassin disobeyed, his jaw tensed as his head hung between his shoulders. The streaks of hair around his face were like a shield, hiding him from the unforgiving eyes of his master. He couldn’t show him weakness, he couldn’t show the truth progressively revealed with each caress. The obscene game stirred the obscured remembrance of a dream, like the sands at the bottom of the sea roused by currents. This was a tide of denial, of stoicism and discipline, he had accepted some things were unreachable. All his master could regard of him was his talent, skill, prowess, nothing more.

Kayn had seen this before, somewhere, in the darkest recesses of his soul.

“Are you testing my… resilience?” The voice was strained as he swallowed his own breath, the humid, slippery surface of the shadows became a wanton fondling tracing the outlines of his muscles, circling his nipples without yet touching them, a delicate torture of starvation.

“No”, answered Zed, and in his voice appeared a tint of impatience. “Have you not been listening?”

The shadows stirred again, and their embrace became painfully tight, holding Kayn’s arms pressed against the sides of his body. The tendrils on his neck forced the boy to follow the orders of his master, turning his eyes to him and raising his chin.

“I want you to surrender to me”.

“Isn’t that the same as defeat?” Kayn hissed, strangled by the shadows. He faced his master, the contours of his cheeks possessed by a hungering blush. The determined glower of his eyes had melted into a warm, fevered gleam. The parted lips craved for air as he twisted in the darkness’ grasp.

“Didn’t I surrender everything the day I became your…” A jolt pleasure burned his spine, forcing him to wince despite the growing asphyxia. The rest of his words were lost.

“Did you feel defeated when you accepted the blessing of the shadows, when you accepted it as a part of your being?” Zed’s hand came forward, and this time it brushed the hair away from Kayn’s face, cupping his cheek as the gauntlet touched the corrupted skin. “Or did it empower you?”

He put his fingers away again, taking a step back, letting a shadow occupy the place he had been filling. The same shadow which started caressing Kayn with a ghostly hand, searching for his mouth once more.

“My recognition. My acceptance. My… touch”. Zed’s voice came from everywhere, his position only revealed by two red glows in the dark. “I will give it all to you if you show me what really lurks in your heart”.

“I have always been your most brilliant student, the only one who deserved to be regarded, I claimed the darkin for myself, not to betray you but to succeed you,” Kayn confessed, his words heavy with the emotions he had restrained in his cold pride. But there was still so much forbidden to admit, yet his lips parted, accepting the shadow’s fingers, his body complied mindlessly.

“Yes”, accepted Zed, and his voice came like a pur, rewarding the boy for his sincerity with a caress over his torso. A shadow, like a hand, brushing his chest, his nipple, almost as if it didn’t pretend to. Touching his stomach with the delicacy of silk, giving him goosebumps.

“Not enough. What else do you want?”

The shadowy fingers pinched his tongue, brushed the inside of his cheek, smearing Kayn’s lips with his own saliva.

The body struggled, almost as if trying to extend the contact between the hand and his blushed chest. To feel once more the lewd embrace of the shadow surrounding his sensitive skin. He needed it, even if it had been completely unknown to him before.

The assassin’s eyes had almost closed to slivers as his tongue rolled, playing with the invasive fingers. No words replied to his master as his body’s gestures slowly betrayed him, revealing a lustful secret. He inhaled his own breath, sucking the fingers of shadow, shy, gently.

The tendrils reacted, moving slightly inside his mouth, accompanying Kayn as he sucked. The rest of shadows kept their silky touch, caressing his exposed chest and back, the nape of his neck as they mingled with his hair. They never trespassed his clothes, only teasing him with a promise.

False fingers kept touching Kayn’s face with a sweetness few had ever shown to him, none in such a way. Hands of darkness kept cupping his jaw, rubbing his neck, searching for his mouth as they encouraged the boy to keep going, to let go of his self-imposed restrictions.

“Kill the body... free the body”, Zed whispered, the red of his eyes moving as he circled Kayn, like a predator before its prey.

As Zed ordered, his trained mind mechanically responded. “Free…,” the word was a sigh between his moist lips as he unconsciously pleased the provoking hand. The mantra had a strange, soothing effect on his mind, instead of detaching his thoughts from the heavy sensations burdening his body, it seemed to deepen the darkness instead of dissipating the haze.

“Build”. Not freed, but shackled to a miasma of desires denied and almost unknown.

“Kill”, the sentence fell heavy in his mind, starting a fissure as it echoed, repeated, his own teachings and indoctrination masterfully used against him.

Kayn’s back arched, his skin visibly fevered for his Master’s eyes. The single word twisted into a groan as his head pulled back, linked by a tendril of crystalline saliva to the fingers.

“More,” he begged.

As if he had conjured a spell, a hand returned to his neck, but this time with the cold touch of leather. Zed’s masked face hovered over Kayn, surging from the darkness itself.

“What do you want, Kayn?”, said the Master with a husky tone. “Do you want me to touch you?”

As a demonstration, his fingers ran up and down his throat, tracing a path, from the underside of the chin to the collarbone.

“I”, the back of Kayn’s head rested on the metallic surface of the master’s shoulderplate. He stared at the ceiling through heavy-lidded eyes. There was no more wood or tatami, only darkness. He was alone, surrounded by shadows in in the most unholy union with his mentor. It was almost too perfect.

“I have been Chosen”. Both of his eyes closed as he gently rubbed his temple against the icy mask of death. That intimidating mask which inspired fear even in the hearts of the Elders meant a refuge, a temple, almost everything to him, even more than what his arrogant mind was willing to accept.

“Yes", Zed muttered, and his cold breath slipped out through the apertures on his mask, hitting Kayn’s face with the scent of steel. One of his clawed hands gently remained on the boy’s chin, while the other slowly descended past his chest and over his abdomen. Its touch was rougher that the silky brushing of shadows, but that only made it more real.

“Tell me, tell me everything. Say it".

Skin and muscles trembled beneath the provoking touch, those fingers were the promise of the unimaginable, something he had denied for so long. But at the same time, it was only the reminiscence of forbidden nightmares.

“Dreams shouldn’t come true”, Kayn’s eyes opened to slivers, still gleaming with life, the abnegation born in the deepest respect for his master. Unreachable, like a dark saint above them all. His only opportunity would be to ascend, conquer the darkin and become an equal.

Zed let out a soft growl, and it reverberated through all the shadows, making the whole chamber vibrate. “Dreams exist to be conquered”, he said. His mask was so close to Kayn’s face that the boy’s breath misted the metallic surface. The sharpened tips of the gauntlet scratched his neck gently, leaving thin, reddened trails as The Master talked again, with a low musing.

“Do not deny me”.

The shadows stirred and surrounded Kayn’s waist, capturing him in a tight embrace. The amalgam of darkness started to crawl upwards, sliding over his body and leaving a wet trail. Once it reached his chest, it spread and formed a vague humanoid shape with maws, a face without features or eyes.

They licked Kayn’s skin, covered his nipple with false lips that still felt so real. More mouths that assaulted his sensitive spots, his neck, his collarbone, his jaw… Nibbling, kissing. With every touch they promised more, inviting him to fantasize how the real ones would feel.

The body shuddered in Zed’s hands as it responded to the relentless stimulation. The tongues obscenely circled his nipples until they hardened beyond soft buds, outlining on each pectoral muscle, tasting it. But it was always insufficient, as tangible as shadows were, they felt like the touch of a nightmare, unreal. There could be so much more.

Kayn’s mind betrayed him, unconsciously imagining those same lips licking and sucking the lewdest secrets of his body. His hips bucked and twisted against the dark restrains, craving to find the same perversion assaulting his chest, coating it in a humid slime.

Time dragged in silence, only interrupted by the perverse suckling noise surrounding the assassin as it mixed with erratic groans, his brain doused with pleasure.

“I don’t deny you”, Kayn gasped for air, almost choking, he hungrily accepted the torture. ”Am I...awake? Am I truly wishing this dark pleasure?” His eyes remained open, but dulled as if asleep.

“It has always been within you”. Zed remained seemingly undisturbed despite what happened around him, the shadows’ deranged acts -under his own command- not enough to break the stoic aura that always surrounded him.

“Do you crave for my recognition?”, he urged, tightening his grip. At Kayn’s back, the craddle of shadows had slowly been replaced by the solid surface of steel and leather, with Zed’s body in direct contact with him. Slowly embracing him, covering him until he would swallow him whole.

“I do”, Kayn admitted, his back arching against his Master, almost as if he willingly forced his chest deeper into the hungry lips, demanding for more. The stimulation persisted, malevolent and delicious, licking, nibbling, the voracious suction that cruelly kept him unsatisfied.

“Do you crave for my blessing? My touch? My love?”

“Yes.” The assassin’s eyes closed in a lustful smile, his arrogant face subdued by desire, shamelessly blushed.

The mask was touching Kayn’s face, rubbing delicately over his cheek as Zed’s fingers played with his lips. “My Chosen…”

“Yes!” the voice was marked by a nascent euphoria that throbbed in the most vulnerable points of his body. The maws were unbearably real, almost electric, warm and expert like demons. They knew how to please him as if they were creations of his own denied fantasies, now free and unbridled. The slippery tongues drawing simultaneous circles on the areolas to then nibble at the nubs, playing with them again in a seemingly endless torture.

It felt as if his disciplined and unbreakable body was melting in his master’s arms.

“So be it”. Zed’s last statement came out alien, otherworldly as the prophecies of a god. He slid two fingers of his left hand inside Kayn’s mouth as he had been foreboding until then. Both gently bitten and taunted by the hungry tongue, abundant with saliva. Kayn played with his master’s hand, it was only the beginning of an obscene ritual.

Zed’s other hand slid down the boy’s body, from the neck to the shoulders, to the chest, and even beyond. The shadows made way for him, spreading with reverence and showing a path until his fingers reached the border of the rope belt.

He didn’t slide under it, not yet, but instead brushed the inner side of his thighs and his groin, gently, but not with innocence. There hadn’t been anything innocent in that situation for a while. Maybe there hadn’t been anything from the beginning.

He rubbed it, the half-formed hardness beneath the fabric, the cold fingers contrasting with the heat of Kayn’s flesh. It was slowly becoming an even darker fantasy, and the acolyte was anxious to overdose on it. Just as his tongue responded to the wicked teasing, his hips obeyed the icy embrace, strangely pleasant against the fevered flesh. The bulge was surrounded by the strong, masculine hand as he accepted it, burying into the chilling darkness.

The scent invaded the assassin’s nose and tongue, steel mixed with the sacred incense of the chamber. His eyes were open and he could only see the shadows, his exposed body submerged into the inky abyss, his master possessed all of his senses.

“Why is it forbidden?”.

“No one said it was", Zed’s voice was soothing as well as husky, encouraging as it shouldn’t have been. He seemed satisfied with the way Kayn sucked his fingers, and the metal scales were slowly gaining heat.

The other hand continued caressing the erection, surrounding it with his palm, careful not to hurt him with the clawed tips.

The shadows slowly slithered over Kayn’s skin again, dark hands and mouths reclaiming their place upon his body. Thin tendrils slid under the fabric of his trousers, reaching for the parts the Master could not. They circled his groin, brushed the base of his penis with a silky touch that contrasted with the roughness of Zed’s hand.

The returning touches sparked a bittersweet current through Kayn’s spine, hot with pleasure, cold with sensations unknown. The wanton texture of the shadows invading his body forced his mind spin and twist, the wet tongues licking areas he ignored before. They explored the crevice between his buttocks and even below, from the back of his body to the front.  

Kayn froze, gasping for air as his head withdrew from the invading hand in his lips.

“It simply was...” It was one of the silent laws of the Order, the master was an unreachable figure, the immortal shadow above the acolytes.

The assassin heaved, the strong purpose behind his beliefs cracked with each new centimeter licked, with each consecutive suction on his nipples, with each touch of his master´s hand playing with the warm fluid weeping from his erection. Kayn winced, still confused by his resistance. Why had he denied it in the first place? Why restrain? Why not give in?... A moan was stifled between gritted teeth as the acolyte winced with pleasure.

“Respect and admiration… do not forbid this, Kayn". Zed brushed the boy’s hair away from his face with his fingers still coated in saliva, always so gentle. The hand on his groin had picked a steady rhythm, pumping slowly, while the shadows like a thumb would draw circles on the swollen glans, playing with the foreskin beneath the garments. He could feel how the member twitched under his touch, it was so easy.

The shadows continued with their help and hidden caresses, touching Kayn wherever they could reach, searching for more places to extend their eerie pressure.

“There is so much more I could do to you”. Zed breathed out against Kayn’s cheek and as if to give a demonstration, shadows started to squirm around his entrance, forming the consistency of something harder, thicker. “So much more to learn…”

It was a dark, slippery substance with a living will, molding into a bulbous shape that cruelly licked tight bud in the depths of his body. The delicious shudder forced his fingers to curl as he thrust in a hungry attempt to intensify the prodding on his sphincter. Each spasm was becoming more desperate despite the resilience of his mind that did not give into oblivion. Kayn was conscious, his body betrayed him. He tossed and turned, now clenching his jaw as the tides of unbearable pleasure crashed against his brain.

The warm body of the assassin gleamed with sweat in the dim light of the chamber, like a sacrificial ritual.  The Master kept caressing the boy’s face and his neck gently, with a touch more possessive than sexual, it contrasted grotesquely with what his other hand was doing, with what the shadows were doing.

“Kill the mind…”, he purred, causing Kayn’s eyes to widen again, his pupils contracting despite the absolute darkness. Zed gently rubbed the boy’s lips, opening them. Then, a shadow took their place, covering the mouth with a false one in a ghostly kiss. Caresses soft as a butterfly, brushing and sucking, and a strangely cold tongue that seemed able to reach his throat. “Free the mind…”  the whisper was low, monotonous, hypnotic.

Kayn’s mind ached as it had unconsciously resisted the pleasure. But those words became the key to shatter the defenses so deeply engraved in his soul. Obey. He could only obey, helplessly submitting to the deranged kiss, the same which could be so easily imagined on the tip of his fevered erection, curling and rubbing hungrily as if it was the sweetest berry.

The Master felt it, the tension in the acolyte’s body cracking as he gave in, losing himself into the oblivion of sensations assaulting him with merciless precision. Kayn’s eyes closed as his lips corresponded the invasive kiss, hips thrust deeper into Zed’s hand as he craved for more, blinded by the white euphoria. The squelching sounds, the fervor of the accelerating hand, the tongue provoking his entrance, his mind bled, his soul wounded, he was going insane. This was so deliciously evident to the Master of Shadows.

Zed hummed in appreciation after seeing how his apprentice had finally let go of his last restraints. Hovering over him, the master embraced him tighter, pressing Kayn against the hard surface of his plate armour.

He kept brushing his hair while his other hand pumped faster over the fabric, letting the shadows squirm beneath. The tendrils and artificial lips also moved more urgently, more intensely. They all commanded: give in.

“I want you to scream in liberation", Zed growled, tightening his grip around Kayn’s penis almost painfully, pumping tortuously slow once before resuming with a much faster rhythm. But the protuberance stimulating his anus never penetrated him, it was the shy first encounter for a promised future.

The assassin’s words were smothered, even if they were irrational moans of delusion. His body couldn’t resist more than a few fevered heartbeats, licking, sucking, false thrusting, his mind shattered to splinters. The body tensed in Zed’s grasp, blind by the luminous white of ecstasy. For a few ephemeral seconds, his consciousness was lost, dissolved in the spiraling madness of lust. The only sounds breaking the lewd symphony were the stifled groans in his throat. The fluid transpired the garments, sticking like threads between the master’s fingers.

Zed accompanied his acolyte’s orgasm with his gestures, stroking his member a few more times as it twitched in his grasp, it belonged to him now. The other hand kept petting the boy, giving him consolation, reassurance that everything was going to be alright after the crime Kayn had committed in his mind.

The caress of shadows slowly dissolved as they started to abandon Kayn’s body, leaving a trail of flushed skin behind.

Zed lifted his stained fingers, examining them for an instant before putting them close to the other's face as his head hung limply between his shoulders, still blushed.

“Kayn, look", he called, urging for the boy to open his eyes. “This is the proof of your desire".

In the darkness of the afterglow he could still hear his mentor’s voice, coaxing him like a master of puppets. The shape of Zed’s hand was almost indistinguishable in the inky darkness around them, a pearled and humid surface in the dim illumination of the lamps. His eyes finally closed in a silent denial, even if the myriad of sensations still pulsed within his head, still reverberated in the vulnerable nooks of his body. He knew he wouldn’t forget them, and what was worse, he would crave for them even beyond fevered fantasies.

“Don’t make that face. You did well", said Zed, taking the dirtied hand away. “So well that I’m going to give you a last reward".

He covered Kayn’s eyes with his free hand, even though the boy kept them firmly closed. The strong hand had never been so close, the fragrance of steel in the sensuous darkness. Kayn had been completely blinded, but he didn’t resist. In his mind there were stronger restraints than the shadows shackling his arms, keeping him crucified.

Kayn could only hear Zed’s deep breaths, and then a soft clack as a piece of armour was removed. The next he knew, were a pair of cold, soft lips against his own. The kiss was ghostly, chaste, emotionless, despite the obscenity of his previous acts. They felt so real, more real than any touch he had received that night. Kayn accepted those lips weakly, a shy kiss, mindlessly obedient, the taste was unreal.

But when they parted away, what he could not see with his covered gaze was how behind that mask there was not a face.

There were no features, only shadows occupying the space where Zed’s head would have been. And in the centre, a single, red malicious eye observed the shuddering boy between his arms with a sense of triumph in the white slit pupil.

“Master Zed,” Kayn called out to the darkness, as he tried to reach the presence before him, the shape in the darkness even if he was blind. He attempted to release his arm from the bindings, even if they felt heavier than lead. But this time he could move them, his steps erratic as sinking in black sand, stumbling in the abyss that surrounded him, only to feel the weight of his own body against a solid surface.

Mirroring his actions in the dream, back in the room, his hand still extended into the murk, like a sinner for salvation, reaching for his master.

Kayn instantly sat up, gasping for air almost desperate as if he had been trapped under water, his hand grasping forward, still trying to find Zed. The red darkness embraced his sight as his eyes opened. He took a hand to his face, cradling his head as the haze of the dream cleared, only to realize he had never been sitting, and he still remained on the mattress.

The human fingers slid through his forehead, sickly warm and coated in sweat just like the rest of his body. The sheets uncomfortable and sandy, unpleasant and cold against his fevered skin. Even his long, loose hair felt like a thick lagoon of ink around his head, free from the braid.

The boy clenched his jaw, his mind still trying to digest the nightmare. He felt weak, exhausted as if he had been training for hours, but without the pleasant satisfaction of displayed skill, nor the pride after humiliating another acolyte.

One of his hands coursed through his body, fingers ghosting over his blushed muscles, his torso, his abdomen, below, even recognizing the humid fabric of his clothes. Kayn froze and the hand quickly retired to the side, using it to drag himself and roll over, facing the Scythe.

The red, evil light had been bathing his body instead of the night.

“You were making very unbefitting noises”, said Rhaast, his eye glowed crimson, half-lidded with a perverse glee. “Having sweet dreams?"

The scythe blinked, and for a moment the room was in utter darkness before the red illumination returned to it.

Kayn felt the blood freeze in his veins despite the fever. That voice, that unforgiving eye, what had Rhaast truly witnessed? Without a word, his hand gestured, dragging ribbons of shadow that wrapped around the darkin, smothering him like a shroud.

Rhaast wouldn’t see the truth, confined to a temporary prison of darkness. But Kayn sensed it was too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You though it was Zed, but it was I, Rhaast!


	2. Chapter 2

The crows perched on the gate above cawed uneasily, disturbing the peace and solitude of the temple. It was a dry, foreboding sound, so similar to the day Zed and his followers had crossed those same gates to annihilate the Kinkou.

It was a dark place, an old place. The darkin could still taste traces of a brighter past in the magic particles in the air, magic that had been tarnished by the shadows, by tragedy and blood.

Kayn had returned to the sacred grounds of the Order after a week, it had been the first mission with the Blade of Millennia in his power. He had been expecting it for so long, trusting it would be his first test in the path of ascension.

Yet there was no pride, no victory, only the bitter remains of a sleepless night in that inn by the road. He could still feel the hard pillow against his face, the translucent shōji under the first lights of sunrise, the fear in the eyes of the local folk as he entered the tavern, how they dispersed and skittered away like cockroaches before a torch.

He had not been able to enjoy their fear, the right of the strong before the weak.

Even if awake, his mind still dwelled in the dream. The night had never felt so long and oppressive in Kayn’s consciousness, not even during the hours of darkness in the bloodied mud of the Epool river.

Kayn had been forcefully quiet, almost unwilling to communicate with the darkin as he pretended to possess absolute control as the day unfolded, yet the question kept pricking his mind like a deeply buried thorn. Could Rhaast see each one of his dreams? Were all of his thoughts fully exposed as he planned to defeat him? Fears, doubts, memories, his denied fantasies, the images…, he could have blushed in shame or anger.

Kayn refused to accept it, his pride was an unbreakable barrier, a shield which made him invulnerable even to a blindly arrogant extent. But that night, it had been different, his mind bare, naked, just like his desires had been evident before his master in the dream.

He knew he could not directly interrogate Rhaast at the risk of exposing his soul even further.

Kayn would be forced to read the truth from the subtle behavior of the darkin. Fortunately, the embodiment of death and fury wasn’t necessarily subtle, though he too had been unusually quiet during the journey. The acolyte trusted it would be simple, but it was strange, almost suspicious. Rhaast wasn’t even gloating or mocking him. It was too good to be true, it bothered him.

His mind was absent as he continued his way up the steps of the once Kinkou monastery. The guards had not dared to cross Kayn’s path; they recognized him as a brother, as another acolyte,  but there was something different in him, something inhuman. All could sense the malignant presence of the darkin, deeper than the shadows, it bore the taint of unspeakable evil, disturbing even those attuned with darkness.

Kayn knew exactly where to go as the eyes of the acolytes followed him with caution and whispered to each other uneasily, just like they had done upon his glorious return from Vindor.

Uncertainty and mistrust divided the disciples as they observed Kayn enter the central pagoda.

An oppressive aura welcomed him. Since the day Zed had claimed that building as his own, shadows started to nest in it, whispering to any perceptive enough to listen. It was there where the initiated members of the Order communed with the forbidden magic for the first time, where they learned the secrets Zed conceded, and where the Master had placed his lair.

As Kayn followed the stairs carrying Rhaast’s weight on his shoulder, darkness became thicker, the air damper and colder, musky with the scent of incense. Natural light was denied in that place, rows of dim candlelights and the ominous glow of Rhaast’s eye guided the way, bathing Kayn’s path in crimson. It was unsettling, unlike the utter darkness Kayn was used to.

The door to Zed’s room was closed, as usual. Once the audition chamber of the Kinkou Triumvirate, it had now become the place where the Master of Shadows spent most of his time, the grave of his mentor. The same eerie scenario of Kayn’s dreams.

The assassin was unnaturally anxious, the mere memory was enough to disturb his generally calm heartbeat. His discipline allowed him to prevent the tension from transpiring into his demeanor. Even if he had learned the art of being unreadable, he wondered how much could he hide from his Master’s ruthless eyes.

He finally stopped before the large double door where the shadows stirred and whispered, and this time there was a brotherly reverence. He was accepted, almost like a stray child returning home. Rhaast had not been confined to a weapon rack that evening, he was there, with him, a pressure on his shoulder.

The differences with the dream became more and more certain with each step as he slid open the shōji. It had only been a nightmare, nothing more, but in the depths of his soul a sliver of hope still lingered. Kayn clenched his jaw in denial and closed the door behind him, careless and almost loud. He advanced into the room, his demonic red eye matched the glowing crescent adorning the Scythe’s head, the only two distinguishable features in the absolute darkness.

As he had expected, Zed seated silently in the center of the room. Back at him and head lowered, the candles outlined the shape of his shoulders, the plate, cloth and leather covering his body. Like in the dream, he seemed deeply sunken in meditation, though the acolyte’s presence wasn’t unknown to him. The candles flickered.

Kayn dropped to one knee, placing the scythe on the floor before him, perhaps too close to the imperceptible maroon stains.

“The Vastaya chieftain in the Galrin Province has been silenced, his song will no longer interfere with our plans. I assassinated him, not witnesses remain. Just as you anticipated”. Kayn looked up, yet the black and blue bangs concealed his face completely. His prideful nature demanded it, the arrogance, the confidence, everything he did not truly feel. “Your orders have been fulfilled”  the boy assured.

Zed took a great amount of time to answer. He first raised his head, as if distracted from his meditation by an unknown sound in the distance - something even Kayn’s words couldn’t accomplish.

“Good”, the Master said, coldly. Silence followed. No more praises, nor explanations, nor secret plans shared in confidence with one of his best acolytes. Nothing.  

Zed’s word felt like an icy splash of water, freezing his senses with an almost painful cold. Kayn remained there, staring at his master wide-eyed. Time passed remorselessly in those heavy seconds, he could even hear his heartbeat reverberating inside his skull.

“Am I…--I have proved myself worthy, haven’t I?” The words rolled in an almost confused stutter, but the demanding edge was perceptible, real. For a brief moment, he couldn’t believe his defiance. The dream…, it had been just a dream.

That sentence caught enough of Zed’s attention for him to turn his gaze over his shoulder. One of his crimson eyes found Kayn, sending him a questioning look.

“Worthy of what?”, he asked, sharply, but still with the soothed tone that let know that he was willing to listen.

Kayn tensed, paralyzed only by his Master’s eye. What had seconds ago been absolute certainty, had now become the uneasy fog of doubt. The question itself was almost offensive as it implied the end of Zed’s rule as the Order’s Leader. He couldn’t become a successor without an empty throne to inherit. The boy inwardly cursed as he now confronted Zed’s red glower. He very well knew the question was unwise, but it was too late to withdraw. Besides…, the great Kayn never retreated without a strategy.

“Worthy of being your Chosen, your Heir.” The reply was fast and sharp like all the blades he had mastered. He could not hesitate before his mentor’s unforgiving presence. Rhaast laughed softly, cruelly at Kayn’s delusion, but said nothing.

Zed’s crimson gaze almost disappeared behind his helmet, squinting suspiciously. His movements were slow yet sharp and elegant as he turned around, standing up.

His shape became a menacing shadow stretching towards the assassin under the dim light. And Kayn felt his heart shrink, his limbs numb, lifelessly anchored to the stained wood where he knelt. His arrogance and confidence betrayed him, Zed wouldn’t forgive it.

The master took a step forward, looking at Kayn so intensely that his eyes could have pierced the boy’s skull. It was impossible to distinguish if he was angry, upset or simply doubting the words of his apprentice. His false metallic features and his perfectly trained body revealed nothing.

The only sound that came from Zed was a hiss as he continued to speak, but was interrupted before he even started. He raised his gaze to the door behind Kayn, looking at something hidden at the other side. The assassin had been so focused in his Master that the intruder’s presence had been completely ignored.

“Come", Zed ordered.

A young acolyte hastily made her way in, bowing in respect while reverently drawing a fist to her chest.

“Master Zed. I apologize for interrupting". Despite her words, she made no signs of having noticed Kayn, deliberately ignoring him. “We have received a message from the Kinkou. The Golden Demon has been located".

After saying that, she presented a letter to her Master as an offering served in adoration with both palms up.

Zed always seemed in control of his own body, but this time he couldn’t stop his fingers from clenching into fists. He said nothing as he approached the acolyte, who quivered before him. The Master furiously snatched the scroll from her hands, his eyes burning with an old rage.

“You are dismissed”, he said. It was a command for both acolytes, and he turned his head to Kayn, even if momentarily, so he could understand it was also directed to him. But instead, the assassin sensed this was the opportunity he had been waiting for. The blood of the Golden Demon would anoint him the new master before Zed’s very eyes.

“Master Zed.” Kayn’s gaze illuminated with determination, almost tasting the beginning of his triumph. “The hunt for the Golden Demon will prove a fine test for my new power. We do not need the Kinkou’s intervention.”

Zed froze and slowly turned his head around to look at his apprentice once again. His gaze was heavy, thoughtful and stern. For a few long seconds, he was silent, watching the boy but also at something beyond him.

“No", he decided at the end, his attention returning to the message in his hands. “You are not prepared for this task. None of you are".

And Kayn was left in the darkness, staring blankly at the spot where his master had once been. Those words had stabbed him, his innards ached with unspoken fury.

Zed had passed by his side as if he had been nothing more than a rock at the side of the road, forgotten, ignored. His discipline allowed him to control his body despite the acid burning in his blood. The assassin lowered his head, knowing his presence was no longer required.

But his hand clutched Rhaast, his knuckles pale with tension. The Golden Demon, his master’s endless hunt, the Kinkou, the Eye of Twilight. It was a perfect triangle where he didn’t belong. It was Zed’s obsession in ways Kayn couldn’t yet understand, he simply wasn’t allowed, he was a foreigner in that tale of the past. Even after spilling the blood of the Kinkou and Kusho, there was an unbreakable link between his Master and Shen. It did not matter how skilled or talented Kayn was, it was never enough, not even if he wielded the ancient weapon of destruction.

“As you… command, Master.” The boy replied lifelessly, the bitterness in his voice concealed as he rose, taking the scythe with him. He turned to the door, the glow of his demonic eye fixed on the ninja reading the accursed parchment for one last time before Kayn left the chamber.

Zed didn’t turn his attention to him again. The door closed, leaving the Master alone in his nest of shadows and blood.

The other acolyte, now that they shared the silence of the lonely corridor, looked at Kayn for the first time. She might have said something if not scared immediately by Rhaast’s curious gaze, causing the girl to disappear in the darkness as she hastily followed the way out.

“Poor Kayn", the darkin said once they were alone, the edge of his voice cut the air with a false sweetness. “It feels like you are disappointed. Did your dear Master hurt you with his indifference?”

“Silence”, Kayn ordered with an authority he did not have. Rhaast laughed in response as the assassin’s grip tightened around the scythe, but no more defiant words were thrown at the darkin. Instead, an uneasy silence surrounded them as they walked down the corridor of the pagoda.

The dark thoughts continued to sizzle in his mind, ideas, plans, to hunt the dreaded Golden Demon, steal his Master’s prey. He was skilled enough to succeed where Zed and the Kinkou had failed. Wasn’t he?

The caw of the four crows still perched on the curved spires mocked him in return. It was a quiet dusk, luminous red like freshly spilled blood. Kayn glared at the sky and started walking to the lonely building which had become his private chamber, away from the other acolytes. He didn’t need their weakness close to him.

“Is it jealousy what I feel?” Rhaast spoke again when Kayn finally reached his austere refuge. A shelter where he hid from the truths of the outside world and could feed his own delusions of grandeur. “Did you hope Zed asked you to assist him in this quest?”

The soft shade of the room was dimly illuminated by the darkin’s unnatural glow, not as noticeable now as it was in the darkness of the night.

“Or perhaps… you can’t stand the fact they steal his attention. Both Shen and the Golden Demon”.

“No”. Kayn retorted as the shōji door was almost slammed behind him. “Master Zed underestimates my ability. I am the best of the Order, the sole prodigy among them all. You have seen them cower before me. You have seen them avert their gaze in fear,” his corrupted arm stretched sidewards as the ribbons of shadow surrounded the darkin menacingly, threatening to devour him.

Rhaast’s squinted as the dark tendrils embraced him, but he did not look away.

“I am above them! Any of them would have been reduced to ashes the moment they attempted to claim you!” The shadows were now the only force supporting the scythe’s weight as Kayn’s fists trembled with frustration. He needed to meditate, he needed to purify his thoughts. Sitting down, no longer facing the darkin, his eyes closed as if he could detach himself from the world and forget the stigma of failure.

“Don’t you dare say my ability is insufficient! I alone am the Chosen!” Kayn lied carelessly. At that very moment, he couldn’t even believe his own lies. _Not prepared. Incapable. Weak._

“And yet, Zed does not care". The darkin’s voice was a low growl that rumbled in the chamber. As the sun continued to set, his shape, his red glow became more menacing and his words harder to ignore. “You have two eyes, yet you can’t see that he will not consider anyone as his equal. No one… except for the Eye of Twilight, perhaps".

Rhaast’s words turned into a painful jab at his mind, breaking Kayn’s concentration as they nourished and fed his doubts, the sole thought he had been avoiding to consider. The strangling shadows dissipated as his control was lost, the scythe fell heavy onto the wood, first the snath then the curved blade. The darkin didn’t even blink as it rattled against the floor.

”How can you be so certain,” Kayn hissed still facing away, but the bitter emotions were transparent in his voice.

“Because I’ve seen it". Rhaast’s voice lost its mocking tone, leaving only the sharp edge, the abrasive feeling in it. “I’ve looked into his soul. I’ve seen countless people like him, arrogant and unwilling to share their power… and countless people like you, who died following an impossible dream. Empty hope… is poison for the heart of mortals".

“I am not like them, I have power, I have claimed you as my weapon. I can fulfill my ambitions. I will surpass Master Zed,” the boy assured even if each word was almost a frustrated hiss. He had closed his eyes, trying to allow the darkness to soothe his wounded pride, to disperse his thoughts. That meditation would also silence the darkin. He very well knew how his focused will could extinguish the burning red of his consciousness.

“Even if you have to kill him?” The amusement in that single sentence was as evident as it was dark.

The question was a thorn digging deeper into the boy’s heart. It made Kayn uneasy, it made him doubt, vulnerable, now that he had been cast aside, replaced and forgotten in his master’s obsessive mission. He would have been the ideal asset, he was everything his master needed, the Order’s prodigy. But instead, Shen had been chosen.

The Kinkou’s dark history repeated itself like a parody, and this time the Master of Shadows bore the weight of Kusho’s mantle. Was Kayn capable of repeating his mentor’s crime?

The assassin did not reply with words as his body tensed with hatred. It did not matter how he tried to clear his mind, Zed’s indifferent silence always returned. He couldn’t stop thinking, imagining how his mentor was reunited with the Kinkou as he sat there in the useless solitude of the room. In the darkness of that moment, he longed for the twisted dream, the fevered fantasy which had forced him to awaken, blushed, heaving, sweated. If only had it been a premonition… But then, Rhaast’s image returned to his mind. The white slit pupil floating in a sea of red malevolence, looking at him innocently. How much could the darkin see through the barriers of his mind? How genuinely transparent was his heart to the Blade of Millennia? Even beneath the shroud of arrogance and shadows, he felt exposed.

Yet, the darkin had remained strangely quiet. He had not even mocked him.

Rhaast. Rhaast was brutal, destructive, honest, simple, like a hungry beast. Kayn had enough evidence to convince himself the darkin lacked of the cunning, guile and vision. The assassin trusted his will was strong enough to hide his deepest desires, even the ones he refused to acknowledge.

’Enough!’, his thoughts chilled and his eyes snapped open. Kayn rose from the carpet by the futon and walked to the corner, retrieving an old brazier. What had once been a shining copper now was marred by soot. In the middle of the oily remains there was a tuft of incense coated in a special resin the Order used to initiate the acolytes in the shadow. It was a powerful narcotic with a sweetly metallic scent which allowed the mind to be freed from the shackles of flesh.

“Are you going to hide behind a cloud of smoke?” Rhaast asked, the taunt not hidden from his wielder. “Does admitting his rejection pain you so much?”  

Kayn grinned scornfully as the darkin’s words failed to provoke him. “How foolish. How dare you underestimate me?...I have no heart to feel such torment. I will meditate in the deepest darkness, where not even you can interrupt.”

He would smother his anger in incense if he needed to, Rhaast’s voice would disappear.

“Who knows…, perhaps when I awaken I will possess the key to your demise.” Kayn’s voice was a soft, confident sneer, perfectly concealing the acid emotion beneath.

“Or I will hold the key to yours", Rhaast promised, softly, venomous.

The acolyte returned to the carpet and placed the brazier before him on the floor. The fire was lit and the resin started to smolder gently, wisps of fragrant smoke rose before him. That would be the end of the annoying prattle fueling his jealousy.

Kayn stared at the flames dancing on the embers, the twisting glow in the dark, tendrils of sweet smoke caressed his face as he inhaled. He gazed into the depths of burning yellow, the transparent inner core of searing blue, countless waves of orange and gold reflected in his human eye, drawing him in. His attention focused, captivated, willingly falling into a trance.

Time seemed to slow down, oozing like a half-molten substance, with each breath, the world became distant, tarnished behind the sacred mist. The lazy pounding of his heart mixed with the soft sound as he exhaled, together they filled his mind as the memory of his master progressively lost its relevance. He was alone in the absolute darkness, just like the first time when he had communed with the shadows. Alone, with the flicker of the flame, a monotonous pattern where his thoughts faded, ebbing and flowing, back and forth.

“You denied me…” Kayn whispered bitterly, the lash of anger forced his dulled gaze to widen, now burning with hate. His head felt heavy, but resentment granted him strength. The haze progressively dissipated as he remembered the female acolyte’s voice announcing the message, how Zed had passed by his side, ignoring him.

The thought cruelly contradicted the Zed in his dreams; the one who looked at him, the one who acknowledged him, the one ready to share with him dark secrets forbidden to all the other acolytes... The two images twisted and mixed, both surreal, both equally believable.

 _‘You are not prepared, no one is’_ , whispered one of them.

‘ _My recognition. My acceptance. My touch. I will give it all to you_ ’, cooed the other.

Kayn’s lips parted as he sucked his breath in frustration. He could not clear his mind, he couldn’t fully free his thoughts from the poison of rejection. Hearing Zed’s ghostly voice was enough to relive the flame of his fury even if the room before him was slowly being distorted by the sweet toxic of the opiate. The assassin narrowed his eyes, attempting to regain focus as his body felt progressively heavier, dazed, shackled. He couldn’t think clearly, but his hatred was genuine despite how much he longed for his Master’s recognition, despite how much he craved for his deserved attention, just like it had happened in the darkness of his dream.  

‘ _Kill the body…_ ’ Kayn felt his stomach plummet. The words echoed from the depths of that dark memory with the cadence of Zed’s voice, as he had whispered them the night before. The sound was so clear it almost felt like he was present in the room, hidden in his shadows.

‘ _You expect me to recognise you as an equal, to accept you as a companion in this quest_ ’, he accused Kayn even if there was a soft edge in his voice, patient. ‘ _But you cannot even defeat your own emotions. How do you expect to challenge the Golden Demon if you are unable to let go of your resentment?’_  

Kayn squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw. His brow pressed and trembled with frustration as he digested his Master’s words.

“I can’t forgive you,” the assassin whispered, strangely feeling like a lost, confused child. His eyes opened again to slivers, the hypnotic glow of the dancing fire reflected in his gaze. “You underestimated me…,  you denied my power, you doubted my strength”.

‘ _Insolent boy_ ’, this time, there was scorn. _’Selfish like a child. Such arrogance will serve you nothing against Jhin, I can assure you. He will crush your infantile delusions and turn your failure into his next performance_ ’.

The shadows stirred, restless, unsettled by Kayn’s emotions, influenced by the nagging whispers in his mind.

‘ _If you are to become my successor you must be freed from the bindings of your emotions! Use what you have learned and get rid of this bitterness. Kill the mind, as many times as you must. Let go of your restrains…, and take what you crave for without doubt_ ’.

As shadows grew stronger so did the false Zed in his mind, imposing, cruel. Stealing more and more of Kayn’s focus despite how much he tried to awaken.

‘ _Didn’t you learn that last night?_ ’ The scent of steel was so close to him now, even eclipsing the sweet stench of the incense.

Kayn was powerless before his Master’s dark wisdom, enchanting, flawless, slowly becoming more real than the demeaning indifference of his previous words. The chamber was submerged in shadow, the tatami floor, the bed, even Rhaast, even his own body, the memories of hours ago. Silence and darkness without beginning without end, everything had been devoured by the inky abyss. Everything, except for the brazier before him. It was a soothing sensation of vertigo as if he was drifting, weightless.

Kayn was inevitably lost in the light, twisting, flickering, becoming the center of his eyes, his world, as if he wasn’t in front of the brazier but inside, among the dancing flames. Focusing his full attention, he continued to gaze deeply into the incandescent heart. The heady, musky fragrance only made it feel so natural as his Master’s words intoxicated him.

“I am your Chosen,” his lips repeated mindlessly, yet a haunting uncertainty lingered in his voice.

‘ _Yes_ ’ Zed conceded, pleased with the obedience. His words seemed to be accompanied by a ghostly brushing of fingers over Kayn’s skin, though the boy might have as well imagined it. ‘ _My Chosen, once freed nothing will restrain you_ ’.  

The flames melted away Kayn’s pain, his resentment, the memories of the day, all was consumed by the fire reflecting on his eyes. His master’s words awakened a deep, delicious form of pride. It healed his soul, it emptied his thoughts, leaving his mind blissfully unaware. His concerns were gone and his bitterness forgotten.

“Free… the mind,” Kayn murmured, staring ahead vacantly through heavy-lidded eyes.

‘ _Free the mind_ ’. The whispering of his Master’s voice danced at the rhythm of the flames. ‘ _Purified of burdens and second thoughts, look within. What do you see?_ ’

“My empty soul,”  his mind was shrouded in soothing darkness, guided by his master’s voice into an abyss of inky water where the meek would have easily drowned. But to the assassin, it was familiar, comforting, he belonged to that lightless infinity. He drifted, detached from the world, from Rhaast's malevolent whispers. Shadows cradled his mind with their cold embrace, lulling him into a dreamless slumber.

‘ _And what does it tell you?_ ’ Zed’s breath was warm against the assassin’s neck, like the heat of the flames licking his skin. A heat that did not burn, soothing and feverish, reality mixed with fantasy. ‘ _With what purpose are you going to fill this emptiness?_ ’

“Ascension…” the reply was honest, strangely docile, his exposed mind devoid of all consciousness. Even if the stars were against him, his power would pierce and destroy them. Their shattered remains would pave his path of greatness, along with all those who defied him.

The air was filled with Zed’s chuckle, ethereal like the whispers of a ghost.

‘ _Then ascend… and make the shadows yours. Relinquish your thoughts, concentrate on the flame, delve deeper, follow my voice. Nothing can stop you now_ ’. Nothing could save him now.

Kayn obeyed, and so did the shadows. The black energy surrounding him in the chamber coalesced vividly into a malleable substance, amorphous and at his command. The forbidden technique tore through reality, the darkness of the spirit realm gushed like blood out of a fatal wound.

“I need more…, shadows are not enough.” Kayn admitted, his subconscious was strong enough to control the dark forms even if his mind slept. The mastery was almost exquisite, the link with the shadows was natural, enviable, they so easily bent to the boy’s will.

‘ _And what else do you wish for?_ ’ The master’s questioning voice had fused with the shadows under his control, ready to serve. For the first time, Zed was the one waiting to be commanded, granting a power to Kayn that he had never experienced before.

The only memories floating down the stream of his thoughts were the fevered images of the lewd fantasy, the sensations that had bloomed in his body the night before, and the hunger blushed his cold, pale skin. Flames twisted against his glazed eyes, agitated by the encroaching shadows, Kayn’s lips parted with one silent word.

What the assassin did not answer, the shadows did. They molded into two perfect copies of his master, surrounding him. His denied secret was now exposed and transparent, he craved for the recognition, the attention, and even more. He fantasized with his touch, his power, his gaze, his mysterious lips across his body, Kayn was free from his own lies.

The shapes surrounded him, compliant like servants. A pair of ghostly hands possessed his shoulders, dragging him backwards against a firm yet spectral body so the nape of the boy’s neck rested on its chest. The fingers disappeared into his hair, releasing the bindings of the braid. The second shadow knelt before Kayn and obeyed, spreading its fingers across the muscles of his torso, following the paths unveiled the night before.

Guided by his Master, he was willing to defile his own body.

The firm grasp made the acolyte shiver, it was his master’s strength, his authority, his power, Kayn was inevitably attracted to it. He wanted that warrior’s favor and recognition, to be remembered, to succeed him.

The assassin’s bare skin had blushed, tickling sweetly as the wisping fingers outlined his pectoral muscles, stopping by the centre of his rib cage. His own hands curled, even his inhuman claw felt the jolt of nascent pleasure, every inch of his body, of his very being awakened. The boy turned his head, nuzzling the body behind him. Freed from his mind, concerns, and inhibitions, Kayn’s impulses were genuine and primal. His hair flowed around them, like the rays of a black sun.

“What will you…”, the whisper dragged with expectation even if it was his own will power the one guiding the shadow marionettes into the obscene game.

Silence and actions answered the boy’s almost pleading words. A cold sensation, similar to the chilled breath in a winter’s night caressed the nape of his neck, playing with his expectations. The texture of the shadows morphed, changed into a damp and soft tissue, recreating the wanton touch of the nightmare.

Meanwhile, the second shadow approached even closer, trapping him between two dark shapes of his master. The dark mist covered its face as Kayn’s mouth was claimed by unreal lips. It was a short kiss, yet hungry, reflecting his increasing desires. Scarlet eyes looked back at him, bright in a face full of shadows. The Zed of his dreams would always be darkness.

Kayn already knew of the myriad of shapes and forms the shadows could take, only limited by the imagination of their wielder. The possibilities were endless, a thousand ways to satiate his needs.

And then, the shadow’s palm brushed against his collarbone, stopping, allowing him to decide, to beg.

‘ _You command, Kayn_ ’, whispered Zed, distant yet present, the last piece that didn’t quite fit in that whole situation. His voice was prideful, mocking, unfeeling… it was hard to tell. ‘ _The Shadows… my shadows. Your desire will give them form. Bend them. Twist them. Claim what is rightfully yours_ ’.

“They serve me, they adore me like a god…” Kayn’s voice had become a delusional murmur, sweet and almost helpless as he sank deeper into the nightmare.

“I want everything, I deserve it..., but I am lost.” Or perhaps his subconscious mind still doubted, trapped within that respectful abnegation, mistrustful as if something was completely wrong. He was forgetting someone, the evil voice of the darkin, his presence, missing. His body betrayed him again, his nipples hardened, excited by his own helplessness.

Zed laughed, his voice echoed in the ethereal darkness surrounding them. ‘ _You will learn, as I promised_ ’.

The silhouette at the boy’s back suddenly bit his neck with teeth that weren’t there a few seconds ago, and his moist fingers drew subtle lines on his chest to finally close around both nipples. First pressing them, then repeatedly twisting the small nubs in a way that could only be described as obscene, forcing the boy to shiver. The entity discovered how sensitive they were.

The second shadow lost its shape, becoming a deformed mass with scarlet eyes molten over Kayn’s body. The touch was damp, dense like honey, refreshing but hot at the same time. Under its surface, it felt like dozens of mouths were nibbling and sucking on his skin, teasing the zone of his abdomen, near the navel. A tongue licked it, circling around and then inside.

Each of them purposely attempted to relive the latent memories of the night before, reactions, whispers, pleas. They would assure Kayn could taste that pleasure again, remind him how addicted he truly was.

‘ _Are you getting some ideas?_ ’, Zed’s voice taunted.

Kayn groaned in delight. The wicked tongue playing with his navel caused his abdominal muscles to tense and ripple as his head tossed against the strong shoulder behind him. His eyes barely opened to humid slivers as both hands buried in the warm amalgam of darkness, coaxing it to slide downwards to the bulge hidden beneath the dark silk garments.

The shadows could be anything he wanted, anything he dreamed or fantasized. Deadly blades, iron chains or deliciously hungry tongues. Kayn clenched his jaw, silencing another moan bubbling in his throat, his pride persisted, even in the fevered trance.

The copy of his master obeyed, its shapeless head hovered over his disciple’s groin. It could barely be called a face; a slick lump of shadows that twisted and dripped like dense threads of tar. Only the eyes, two deep red lights into that mass of darkness, gave it some kind of human resemblance.

The figure descended. The shadows drifted over Kayn’s body and trapped the half-stiffened member into their viscous maw. Even with the clothes serving as a barrier, the touch was electric, inhuman, a humid cavern of twitching walls. It sucked it, softly, with a maddening patience.

The assassin's pupils contracted, his mind stabbed by pleasure ached sweetly. The sensation was overwhelming and it infected every thought, every corner of his brain. The body didn’t resist and submitted to the thirsty sucking, hips mindlessly following the movement. But he wanted more, his intoxicated will demanding his clothes to be undone. The silk felt like a prison, a screen separating him from that slippery trap draining his mind and sanity. No teaching nor discipline could control him now..

‘ _Fall deeper, Kayn_ ’, was Zed’s suggestion, perversely satisfied.

Heeding the acolyte’s unspoken desires, the shadow behind him abandoned his chest and descended to his waist, clutching the edge of his trousers. First, a lazy gesture, barely reflecting the urge fueling it, but suddenly it became demanding, wild. Claws dug into the fabric and ripped it apart violently, revealing the hidden skin beneath, the flushed body now exposed to the darkness.

“You said…” The boy’s voice was a whisper, almost shy as he found himself completely naked before the shadows, he could feel the humid caress of his own erection against his abdomen, coated in the anxious fluids oozing from the slit as the shadow momentarily ceased sucking.  “There was still… so much to learn,” Kayn struggled with the last words as he remembered his master’s promise through the haze. He remembered the tongue, the darkness rolling between his buttocks, how it played the throbbing heat of his entrance. He obeyed, with greed, he commanded the shadows to assault his body, to explore the forbidden secrets of his flesh.

In response, a portion of the mass of shadows before him dissolved at his feet, the eyes fading into the darkness. The dark substance formed a slug-shaped protuberance which writhed into the tight valley. Like the night before, a slippery surface brushed it, licking, poking. But now it didn’t hesitate to defy the resistance of Kayn’s body and go beyond, squirming to get inside. The boy arched against the shadow behind him, the alien, indescribable sensation sinking into him, forcing a lewd moan out of his lips.

‘ _Aren’t you learning right now?_ ’ There was a cold, judging tone in Zed’ voice. He was above, he was everywhere, he was the brazier’s flame, he was the dark abyss around Kayn.

The assassin’s body was fully turning into an erogenous zone, his skin was coated in the glistening residue of the shadows, sensitive and alive, blushed and tense like the muscles beneath.

As the hidden tongue turned and drilled deeper into the small bud of his entrance, the tip of his penis continued to drip copious amounts of fluids, immediately slurped by the black mouth sheathing it once more.   

Kayn was willingly overdosing in the lewd narcotic even if he had only tasted it in a dream. The mounting excitement was capped by waves and waves of pleasure, each stronger than the previous one, inevitably driving him to a close orgasm. His sanity was cracking again, he had lost all control of the shadows. But they persisted as if another will manipulated them.

The boy’s head was forced back when the shadow behind kissed him fervently, reflecting his same need. It captured his twitching, reflexive movements as it insisted on his nipples, the surface of the fingers molded into a squirming tissue, like a snail’s slimy radula. It tortured them, pinching, licking, sucking, circling the areolas. His rigid nipples received the hot stimulation eagerly, it made him twist, it made him smile drowsily. The warm, hungry suction drove him to euphoria.  


Slowly, soft fingers coalesced and lurked in his groin, like a traitorous clasp and closed around the base of his member, denying the orgasm but leaving pleasure into a stalemate without ceasing the abusive stimulation. Perhaps that was the hidden extent of Kayn’s hunger, or the shadow’s intent to create an addiction.

‘ _But still, there’s so much more…_ ’ Zed’s voice was muffled, dense as if it was spoken in water, and it carried a strange reverberation in it. A metallic edge, deep and sweet. ‘ _Give in, and I will show you_ ’.

Kayn swallowed his own breath, away from the kiss. His mind ached, sensing the danger. Something in him recognized that voice, but the idea dissolved hopelessly like sand out of a broken hourglass. His voice slipped into a moan, begging, starving, compliant, his unfocused eyes rolled into the darkness. He surrendered.

The false mouth sucked his erection, a tongue caressing it from impossible angles, playing with the foreskin as if it was a hood to reveal the swollen glans. It was as if it was trying to deliberately milk him more and more, whole, tenderly dragging Kayn to the peak of pleasure he was being denied. The shadows inside him were also accomplices, growing thicker, squirming deeper, wickedly rubbing the sweetest spot with erratic movements.

The effect was pure bliss, so strong, so real compared to the night before. The loud, wet slurping reminded him that was no fantasy. The black fingers kept kneading Kayn’s nipples into sensitive and hard pink flesh, the blush spreading across his chest even further. The orgasm reverberated across his skin completely, pleasure blended, surging from every vulnerable point. While his body was conditioned to desire, his mind was conditioned to obey.

' _I will show you everything_ '.

The pressure on Kayn’s groin disappeared, freeing him. A dark, cold arm crossed his chest and sharp fingers scratched his abdomen, near the navel, sending waves of subtle, tickling pleasure. A pleasure easily swallowed by the insistent sucking on his throbbing member, the licking, warm, fast, maddening.

Kayn moaned helplessly, the restrictions of pride shattered by the electric charge rising, freezing and burning his flesh alike. The orgasm echoed in every corner of his soul, forcing him to breathe desperately, inhaling through his nostrils, his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. The warm fluid spilled over his chest as the shadows enveloping his penis lost all consistency. The climax left him mindless as his body trembled in the fevered afterglow.

The shadows dissolved into thin air, weak smoke now that they have achieved their purpose. The fragrance of incense could be felt again, strongly impregnating the room, warm and almost suffocating.

Zed’s voice faded, eerie and seemingly fragile now as if he too was going to disappear. There was a strange, subdued smugness in him, radiating satisfaction.

 _‘In the end, you must exercise your will, take what you desire with your own hands'_  , he said, his voice slowly becoming distant. ‘ _That is tonight’s lesson_ ’.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are really sorry this took so long. Christmas and real life stuff happened, so this chapter comes many months later than we would have liked. Still, we hope that you enjoy it and the wait wasn't too harsh.

The soil was soft under Zed’s boots as he followed the path down the Shadow Monastery. The road was well kept, a wide course down the mountains. Empty and isolated. In the recent years, almost only acolytes and supply traders walked that path to the Monastery. Few dared to intrude in the lands of the dead Kinkou, to the Master of Shadows’ domains. It had been a cold night. Dew covered the vegetation in droplets, shining like jewels under the first lights of dawn. The world was waking up, accompanied by the chirping of birds.

Not Zed, though. What Khada Jhin awakened in him was visceral, a fury so deeply engraved in his soul and heart that poisoned his thoughts and emotions. His night had been restless, and he had been roaming the Monastery like a vengeful ghost when the audition chamber became a cage too small for his anger.

Training had not been enough to filtrate that venom out of his system, meditation not even an option. Dawn had come almost like a blessing as he finished the last preparations for the travel ahead. Zed couldn’t say that meeting was one he awaited eagerly. The animosity between him and Shen had not receded in the slightest with the years, but rather settled into a grim deposit of hate and rancor as long as that “truce” lasted.

The Master of Shadows had proven he was willing to dwell into the muds of the past, even to go against all his reason and principles if it meant he could finish the accursed hunt for once and for all. He would slay the Golden Demon and make sure Shen witnessed it this time. His once brother in arms would see the true horror just as they had in the past, and then Zed would gouge his eyes out, so the Eye of Twilight could see no more than the darkness of his own mistakes.

A cold wind blew behind him, giving voice to the darkness in his thoughts, but also carrying its own grim whispers. Something seemed to yank at his shin from the shadows, begging him to stay. Zed stopped abruptly, turning around. The first rays of sun were starting to fall over the pale walls of the Temple’s pagodas, making it look like a brighter place, almost like it was before the night of the massacre. But it was just a mirage; darkness lurked under it like a beast waiting behind a paper wall.

He looked at his domain with an intense gaze, feeling that something was amiss. The wind blew again, carrying the stench of mud and decomposition. A bad omen. For some reason, his mind drifted to Kayn and the sentient weapon he carried. He remembered his words the day before, how he had offered to accompany the Master in his quest. Zed had refused, and he would refuse again if the acolyte dared to ask once more. The works of Khada Jhin left a stain on the mind, they were a disease; he could not be sure that Kayn wouldn’t be infected, but if it happened, it could completely compromise the struggle with the darkin. And that was a risk Zed was not willing to take.

He was resolute, but the uneasy sensation perdured. At the end though, he turned his back to the monastery, proceeding his way without a second glance behind.

Zed would deal with this on his return. For now, whatever it was would have to wait.

* * *

Shadows stirred within the monastery, like predators perceiving the scent of another beast, larger and perhaps even more dangerous. The Spirit Realm was unsettled, and it transpired into every corner of the forsaken grounds. Any acolyte initiated in the shadow disciplines could perceive it sizzling in the darkness. But without the presence of the Master of Shadows, no one was authorized to question. No one but perhaps Kayn who possessed that inherent, almost natural bond with the magic.

One of the initiates had made his way to the separate chambers in the depths of the temple. A lonely room for Zed’s chosen student. His prodigious return from Vindor and the repeated success in his studies and techniques had granted him that unique distinction among the others. And Kayn had assured everyone remembered it. Some secretly admired him, but most would never forget his origin, a Noxian in the Order of Shadows, the Master’s favourite, it was preposterous.

One of the acolytes, a male a bit older than Kayn himself stood uneasily before the double door of the _shoji_. He was a boy of the Galrin province, a farmer of humble origins who had lost everything to the abrasive toxic of Zaun raining upon the fields. Yet, he believed in strength and deep within knew Kayn possessed it, Noxian or not, he was worthy of every merit.

That acolyte had not been the only one who had considered asking the noxian assassin about the shadows' strange behavior, but he had been the only one who had dared to approach Kayn’s desolate room. There he stood, in silence, patiently choosing the best words, as his superior had not been seen since the night before, when he exited the Master’s chamber.

“You shouldn’t bother", a voice from behind startled him. As he turned around he was confronted by one of his fellow acolytes, a girl of his age. Despite the roundish edge of her features, soft like those of a child, her body was fully grown and shaped into that of a warrior, strong limbs, a wide back. She also had cut her raven hair short, giving her an almost forced mature look. A scar crossed her face, splitting her right cheek in two. A reminder, a noxian blade, the same which previously had cut down her parents when she was only a child. “Nothing he says will be useful to us".

“He understands the Shadows better than us,” the boy retorted as his gaze sharpened, defying the warrior. “If we do not trust our superiors and advanced students, what is left for the Order? We are one army, Master Zed’s army, sister.”

She eyed the door, frowning. “The noxian wretch. When has he done anything for the sake of the Order instead of his own selfish needs?”

An uneasy silence settled between them, no acolyte could oppose the weight of truth. Kayn would never be like them. “As much as you resent it, he is stronger than us, the Master chose him.” There was a grave hint in the boy’s voice, yet he did not dare to open the door. It was like an invisible wall separating them, two different worlds divided by a threatening abyss. “He will cooperate, the Shadows are uneasy, something is… wrong”.

The girl huffed after a strange grimace crossed her face, not a smile, neither a frown. “Do you think so?”, she asked, sneering back at the acolyte. The sweetness of her words felt forced and unnatural, obviously condescending. “One time I wanted to learn from him. I asked him to teach me. Not only he beat me to the ground, but he also scorned me for it, he looked down on me as if I was _nothing_. Not even Master Zed treats us like that".

Her eyes went back to the door, looking at it like she could carve holes in the paper with her gaze. “He doesn’t deserve our respect".

“You have not been the only one, not the first one, nor the last one.” There was a strange form of defeat in the male’s voice. Sometimes strength alone could not explain Kayn’s demeaning behavior. “Despite his insolence and arrogance, Master Zed entrusted him with the mission in Vindor, something none of us could have ever… accomplished. He now wields a weapon which even the Master respects. He wanted it under the Order’s control, and Kayn succeeded”.

“... I’m not sure of that". For the first time her voice showed an edge of uneasiness, almost fear as she averted her eyes to the side. “That… _thing_ he wields. Have you seen it? The way it looks at us, its voice, its whispers…” She lightly shook her head and then straightened her back, remembering the ninja she was supposed to be. “Master Zed should never have allowed a thing like that into the Order. It is truly demonic. It will bring ruin to us all".

“Master Zed believes Kayn can control it, just like it happened with the shadows. Remember, no technique is forbidden. This…, should be no different.” The acolyte’s words revealed that blind faith Zed inspired on his followers, the Master’s dark wisdom had released them from the shackles of tradition. But there was a hint of doubt haunting him as he glanced at Kayn’s door uneasily. There was an inhuman silence possessing the area as if the Order’s prodigy had sealed himself in darkness.

His companion sent him a skeptical look, her lips going downwards in a concerned line. She was torn between her own reverence for the Master of Shadows and the mistrust she felt towards the best of his acolytes.

“I really hope you are right”, she said, slowly, carrying a grave tone on her voice. “I wouldn’t like to end up with that scythe buried in my back”.

* * *

Voices drifted in the shadows like the debris of a wreckage, he could hear them, even more distant than a dream. Kayn weakly opened his eyes, a pair of hazed slivers struggled to see the silhouettes against the luminous paper door.

His body felt fragile and sick as he lay on the mattress in a puddle of midnight hair. Those voices spoke his name, they were acolytes, his allies, his brethren. The ideas dissolved in his nebulous mind, his soul ached to remember, to overcome the disorientation of the nightmare. Fever dragged him down into the sea of sleep like iron chains, he called the acolytes' names in a whisper of his dry throat. Kayn’s human hand reached for the shapes outlined in light, but they became distant, twisted, blurred, impossible.

“What are you searching for, Kayn?” Rhaast’s voice was a low purr in the darkness. Kayn couldn’t see him, though the red of his eye dimly bathed the chamber. His words echoed inside the boy’s mind, soft, warm like a blanket around him, isolating him from the rest of the world. “Do you want them to find you in this state?”

“I don’t need them,” Kayn hissed as the back of the uncorrupted hand was pressed against his forehead. The skin felt cold and pleasant, like a stone under the moonlight. “I must find Master Zed, he is near…, his presence, I sense it.” His eyes closed as he focused through the fog of his mind. His body was naked beneath the linen sheets, he could feel it, the cool fabric embracing him.

“Zed’s not here", the singing tone in the darkin’s ethereal voice was sweet, condescending and cruel. “He left you, remember? He went away without you, far away".

“The shadows still whisper his name.” Kayn recalled, the dreams felt so real, with his eyes open and glazed could see only darkness. “You are a nuisance,” he finally spat and attempted to gather all the strength he possessed to rise, even if his body felt heavier than iron, prisoner to the bed. But instead, he fell, immobile, facing the ceiling. The weakness afflicting his body was unnatural like a curse, he had never experienced or seen anything like it. “This sickness…, what have you done?”

“He is not here", Rhaast repeated, avoiding the question, and it sounded more ominous this time. “He abandoned you for his hunt, he refused your help and chose the Kinkou instead. You have been forgotten. Remember when you were alone, Kayn? How you squirmed in that mud…”

A lost child, a child that had survived the impossible. Alone and surrounded by death in the reddened coast of the Epool river.

“Do you remember the stench? It was terrible, wasn’t it? Blood soaked the soil, the river slick with crimson. What happened to the other children? They were there too, weren’t they?”

“They surrounded me,” Kayn whispered as his gaze was lost to the darkness of the ceiling, mindlessly allowing Rhaast’s voice to stir the memories he had conquered years ago. The shadows in his mind were a malleable substance; once more he saw it, the Ionian coast sweetened with blood. The waters of Epool river no longer flowing into the sea, stuck in a fetid marsh of corpses and broken weapons. Streams wedged into the mud, dragging random limbs, perhaps a hand still clutching a hammer or a knife. The shadow of the carrion birds circled the spot where his body had fallen consumed by fatigue. Some had already started feasting on the remains scattered around him.

“I was beyond fear. My heart was no more.” Another tide of the river's stream had revealed an unrecognizable body disgustingly close to him. The clothes as tattered as his own, it could have easily been a Noxian tabard or the simple linen of a farmer's garb.

“I stared into the face of death as hunger and thirst consumed me.”

Kayn had seen the bloated waterskin, filled with the precious liquid. His hands trembled, cold, just like they had that day in the filth of the marsh. He had crawled pathetically to reach the waterskin, already incapable of feeling fear or apprehension. He had become a shuddering disgrace in the putrefying swamp of corpses.

“But that would not be my end, my destiny would not be the same as theirs. I had been chosen for more…”

He had drunk desperately, the water warm under the midday sun felt like irritating sand in his throat. Kayn choked with nausea. Coughing had awakened the splintered ribs and the broken arm, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut in noiseless tears, the only ones he could muster. No one would come, Noxus had already sacrificed him and his equals in that cruel message to Ionia. The strength that had possessed him during the battle had abandoned him.

“I endured more than death that day…”

Even with half of his face sunken in the bloody sludge, he had seen a nearby raven struggling to rip an eyeball from one of his companions. That very boy who had shared his dessert with him three nights ago. And he was forced to stare as it took bits and pieces of the corpses around him, whichever it wanted, each peck with a disgusting squelch while he remained motionless in the horrid marsh.

Alone, with the eager carrion birds, with his broken sickle and the intermittent gurgle of decomposition.

The morbid sheen of skin, the pale orange flesh blooming out of the severed limbs was all he could see as the light of his eyes faded together with his life. He had felt no hunger, no cold, no fear, even the privilege of tears had been taken from his misery.

“But he was there, he had been watching, he had judged and found me worthy… Master Zed”. A shadow against the red sunset sky, standing above the rotting corpses and the fetid mud. Unfazed, untouched.

“Did he?” Rhaast spoke, and his voice seemed to escape the hidden depths of Zed’s mask. “Did he save you to make you ascend? Or was he searching for a willing sacrifice?”

Something stirred in the stagnant water surrounding Kayn. A pale, bloated hand emerged from it as a flower slowly blooming. The fingers were twisted and the skin cracked and broken, oozing dark and yellow blood. What was one, soon multiplied, a field of disgusting pale blossoms.

“Why did he send you to Vindor? Do you think he trusted you would be strong enough to kill the noxians? To destroy me?” The carrion birds cawed, scared when dead limbs started to move again. Nails scratched the soil like rodents gnawing into wood.

“You are just a pawn in his game. He doesn’t believe in your success, he doesn’t trust you. All your adoration means nothing to him”, the voice reverberated as Zed didn’t move when the cadaveric fingers started to search for Kayn. They wanted to drag him down, to the place where he really belonged: at their side.

“Nobody has ever cared for you, Kayn. A child of disgrace can only receive hate”.

Once more, he was there, a helpless body in the filth, his limbs numb, the memory of the pain still echoed in his bones.

“I don’t need compassion, I don’t need mercy, I don’t need love”, Kayn retorted as he tried to pull his arm, which was immediately bound by the slimy fingers of a hand. He recognized those fingers, small yet hardened. Those were the hands of the child soldiers, the ones who fell around him as he stood, triumphant, above the corpses, his young face splattered with blood.

The boy gritted his teeth, realizing he was surrounded, this whole body, immobilized by hands like iron.

“I have no guilt, I have no heart!” Kayn barked to the voice in his nightmare. “They fell, I rose. No one died in my place! This is the fate of the strong, to be scorned by the weak!”. Tiny fingers intertwined with his hair and forced the back of his head into the mud, the strength increased progressively, as if attempting to break his neck.

“The fear in their eyes is a testament to my power! The Order of the Shadow recognizes my…”

“Nothing”, Rhaast spoke again, but this time it was not his voice: it was Zed’s. Eyes full of disdain, he observed from the top how Kayn was dragged down to the water without any intentions of stopping it.

“You are nothing. Nothing to the Order of the Shadows. Nothing to me".

“Rhaast!” Kayn growled, conscious of the cruel amusement in the darkin’s voice. But even as false as they were, those words in Zed’s unmistakable lips pained him. The rotting hands grappled his neck like a choker, burying him deeper, strangling him in the process. And that grip repeated itself across his body, bruising his arms, threatening to splinter his bones, he sank in pestilence and darkness. Kayn was surrounded by small black shapes, like vultures shadowing his body. Even as the images blurred before him, he recognized them, the children, his blind, sacrificed comrades.

“This is not --real,” the boy gasped, squeezing his eyes shut, he had to focus, disperse the hallucination before he drowned in it. But his body was paralyzed when he felt it, the cold fingers digging into his chest as if his flesh was nothing but soft soil for the roots of a putrid tree. They buried deeply and smoothly, branching around his beating heart. A scream died in Kayn’s throat as the horrifying sensation spread through his being, like hot and cold wires. It felt as if his heart was being torn, eaten while inside his ribcage, possessed, stolen.

Stolen into cold, clawed hands, demonic, as a pair of ember eyes contemplated his bloody trophy with, oh, so much cruel glee.

“Real or not, you can’t escape the truth”, laughed Rhaast. “You don’t belong to Zed or the Order, or even Ionia and Noxus. You belong to me". And as he spoke, his words awakened the corruption on Kayn’s sleeping body like a curse, painfully twisting the flesh, bending the bones to take another, darker form.

A soft, dry sound could be heard faintly in the lonely bedroom, similar to porcelain slowly cracking. The darkin stain throbbed and branched, slow and painful, only a few inches from its original size, spreading from his shoulder down to his chest, but also upwards as if anxious to capture his neck. It mirrored the nightmare’s grasp, as the white rotting fingers strangled him, as the claw buried deeper into his heart.

“No! It is you who belongs to me”. The words were a strained whisper between Kayn’s gritted teeth. When had Rhaast become so powerful? He felt as if he was drowning, his soul ached.

“It is inevitable”. A malevolent presence, though invisible, pushed Kayn further into the embrace of those cold hands, never allowing him to escape the cage of his twisted memories. “No one will come for you, no one will guide you, no one will save you! Weak and alone…, you will fail".

‘I must break free’, his thoughts echoed as he felt the pressure in his mind like a tide of red darkness, smothering him. In his bedroom, Kayn’s physical body reflexively gasped for air, mirroring his hallucinations. His eyes opened as his head rolled to the side, staring blankly at the translucent wall. The voices became as distant as the silhouettes walking away. 

The assassin was left behind in the swamp of nightmares, no one would come, no one would remember him, forgotten and alone. Even in that state of cracked vigil, his human hand stretched forward, trying to reach for the departing acolytes. The misshapen shadows of the two reflected on his glazed eyes. They were gone. Kayn’s lips twisted in a voiceless call that was left unanswered.

“You are as dead as these children". Rhaast’s words were muffled by the throbbing and the cracking on Kayn’s skin as the darkin taint kept spreading. The pain of the flesh being stained with progressive corruption reflected in the nightmare as the claw gripping his heart.

The burning sensation only increased as the disease found higher resistance. It had now marked the boy’s neck and crossed the collarbone. The scar across his young face had extended down to his chin like a possessive kiss. Kayn groaned in pain as he tossed and turned almost erotically, clutching the sheets, cold against his fevered body.

Until it stopped. The claws of the darkin’s consciousness weakened, only to quickly disperse a second after. Rhaast was gone. Only silence remained in that strange dream. It was a hollow form of peace, Kayn’s mind ached, the absence of the darkin felt as alien as the very moment when his hand clutched the scythe’s snath. It was a parasitic union. He needed him.

“Rhaast?” Kayn hissed. Even the slightest whisper doubled into an echo in that abyss, those depths beneath the depths where the waking world felt distant and nebulous. He tried to move, he was free, his body felt heavy, dirty, he remembered that sensation, it was the same as he lay dying in the mire of the river ten years ago. Kayn looked at his hands stained with mud but human. Yet there was no victory or relief, only a dark, and desolated chasm. Without sky, without earth, without sound beyond his own heartbeat.

“Show yourself!” he demanded, lips twisting into a snarl. Again, no one answered, nothing but the timeless silence. A maddening loneliness started to ebb at his mind as his senses were denied all stimuli. Without light there were no shadows, without another presence there were only his thoughts, his confusion, his nascent fear. Kayn helplessly stared into the darkness, like a dream within a dream, he couldn’t discern if he was awake or not. But even that lost its relevance, his mind was numb like flesh after deep suffering. His sanity was wounded.

“Why are you afraid?” Rhaast and the living corpses were gone from the dream, but strangely, Zed remained, his image cropped as if it belonged to a broken painting. He hadn’t moved from his place atop the mound, casting a long shadow below. His cape fluttered behind him, even though there was no wind blowing.

The world around them was disturbingly quiet, empty besides the two of them. His world soon became the sole image of Zed.

“Does loneliness torment you, Kayn?” He spoke in that patient, slightly condescending tone he used with the youngest of his acolytes as if Kayn was truly the child lost in the Epool’ shores. “Jealousy. Pride. Helplessness. What is going to be the next thing I have to save you from?” Zed’s voice always had an undeniable influence on Kayn, it captured his attention, ironically like a beacon in a darkened world. It was difficult to hear his own thoughts when the Master of Shadows was present.

The boy lowered his head as he remained on his knees, arms hanging lifeless at the side of his body. “I have always been alone”, Kayn admitted passively.

“And what benefit has that brought you?", Zed said as he approached. His silhouette was slowly gaining consistency as the darkness covering him dispersed like wisps in the air. He stopped when he was mere inches from Kayn’s face, looming over him like a mountain. “In what way does loneliness make you stronger? Just now you were reaching for the help of your comrades, were you not?”

“I--, I don’t know.” His lips twisted in the darkness, all that fear suddenly revived. Kayn looked up, his eyes wide, pupils contracted by terror. “Master!” The boy’s hands clutched Zed’s red clothes, like a dying beggar to a saint, his forehead pressed against Zed’s knees. “Something… stirs the shadows, the darkin… he is…” ‘ _Out of control_ ’, his thoughts whispered as he squeezed his eyes shut. Kayn knew his mentor would never forgive him.

“Poor Kayn". Zed gently patted his apprentice’s head, as one would do trying to bring consolation to a child. “So little and so lost".

He tugged his hair, not painful but commanding, forcing him to lift his gaze.

“Look at me. Look only at me, listen only to my voice. Do not fear the shrouded path, for I am the Shadow”. Zed brushed away the strands of black and blue hair, exposing Kayn’s face. “I will free you from this pain. Only if you obey, if you serve, if you give everything to me. Leave your thoughts behind and embrace the darkness".

The boy helplessly stared in return, lost in the blur that had become his Master’s mask. He remembered those words, he had heard them years ago as he stumbled in the misery of the battlefield. Just like now. Those same words had been the beginning of his rebirth, the end of his life as a Noxian. Kayn’s expression changed, lulled by his master’s truth. His mind numb, his fear hazed. Zed’s voice was a suggestive drug and he willingly accepted it.

Kayn closed his eyes submissively as his head tilted, nestling in the shadow’s strong hand. He had forgotten his pain, his worries, he had forgotten Rhaast.

“Guide me”.

* * *

Rain poured as Zed returned to the Shadow Monastery, two days later. His clothes were soaking wet, ripples of water cascading down the metal of his armor. There was a heavy and somber aura around him, fists clenched, defeat marked him.

Something similar happened to the monastery. It drowned in an unnatural silence. The place had been tainted by the presence of shadows since the fateful day Zed had unleashed their full power. Hidden, slithering, always watching, whispering to their Master. No secret existed in his domains. Until now.

Zed knew something was wrong. Something disturbed the shadows, driving them to coil at his feet, whispering warnings. He tensed, drawing blades as he moved forward, expecting some unknown danger. He found none, but one of his acolytes came to him soon after, running in the rain.

“Master Zed!” He bowed between ragged breaths and remained with his head lowered, even as the heavy drizzle lashed his back. It was almost commendable. “Please forgive us. Something terrible happened in your absence, Master".

Zed’s eyes narrowed behind the mask. The dark omen he had been sensing now possessed the Monastery, an evil atmosphere surrounded him heavier than the rain.

“Show me".

* * *

Kayn could feel the warmth trickling down the corners of his mouth. Shadows clouded his world and his eyes, intoxicating him with the madness of desire. His lips were sealed around the obscene darkness below his Master's navel. He drank eagerly as he had been instructed, sometimes stopping, heaving, his warm breath against the surface coated in saliva. His expression was feeble, soft, his eyes half closed with bliss. He had been ordered to kneel, to worship, to harden.

* * *

Zed watched the bodies before him in a grave silence, interrupted only by the drops of water from his clothes hitting the ground. They had been covered in red shrouds, stained with big and darker patches of blood. The lights of the lamps danced around, casting strange shadows over the corpses, creating the illusion of those hidden faces were twisted in anguish.

The acolytes revealed the bodies with frightened reverence. A young man and a woman. Both presented various slashes on them, some shallow, some deep as if the injuries had been inflicted blindly. That was not how Zed trained his ninja to work.

He recognized the man, a young acolyte from Galrin, shy and compliant. He had a cold expression of surprise in his face, his eyes open wide like a dead fish. His partner though had her features twisted by pain or fear, and it made the scar on her roundish face look even more grotesque.

* * *

The praise awakened a tingling sensation, a wellspring in the depths of soul, flowing with the closest thing Kayn knew to happiness. 'My Chosen', Zed had cooed in the darkness. It made Kayn's body tense with pleasure. The husky voice of his Master fed his ambition sweetly. His penis throbbed, mirroring the pulse of lust in his mind as his thoughts were washed away by the tides of commands pouring into his ears. So obedient, so aroused, leaving only the docile acceptance of the shadow's instructions. "Yes, Master," he chanted in response to voiceless orders he could only hear. Kayn felt another delicious slurp against his hardened nipples.

* * *

 

“Who is responsible for this?” Zed asked as he turned to the acolytes around him. They all looked back, uneasy, like lost children searching for light.

“I am sorry, Master. We do not know”. The man from before bowed again as if that could spare him from the Master of Shadows’ fury. “Nothing was heard, nothing was seen. When we found them, it was already too late. We have failed you".

There was a chorus of soft whispers following his words. They all spoke of the same thing. Blood, shadows, betrayal. Demons.

* * *

With deeper obedience came deeper pleasure, blissful, mindless. Darkness rewarded him, swallowing the length to the base, to his groin. It constricted softly, an obscenely wet sheath, just as he had learned to love in his dreams or nightmares. That same darkness lapped the precum hungrily, it milked his penis expertly with wanton squeezes and slick undulations. In a deranged harmony, the sphincter between his buttocks twitched around the invasive limb penetrating him mercilessly. Kayn felt his Master’s powerful hands around his neck, they possessed him and he accepted it. The red glow within his metal mask bathed the side of boy’s face, but Kayn couldn’t see it, he was blind.

* * *

“Enough". Zed’s command made the room fall silent once more. His immobile figure, like an ice statue, radiated a deep cold ire.

A gesture of his hand and the corpses were taken back. They would be cremated after the necessary rites; the bodies had to be protected from evil spirits and other beings that could attempt to claim them.

The Master of Shadows had had enough of demons. He’d had enough of gruesome murders and people dying as he remained powerless. He would not allow such crimes in the core of his own Order.

“They will pay for their crimes in blood”.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies again for the delay. But better late than never!

The moon’s glow bathed Kayn’s body as he stood in the middle of the darkened pond. His image was blurred as it reflected in the silvered surface of the water, his face was distorted. He could see it, but he didn’t recognize it, his mind felt heavy, uninterested, drowsily apathetic. 

That lonely spring across the forest was still within the temple’s grounds. It had become a private sanctuary he used to purify his body after training.

The night was unnaturally calm after the storm, shadows had devoured all sound but the echo of the dripping leaves. It reminded him of death, blood on the curved edge of a scythe. Memories rippled in the dark. 

Kayn allowed himself to submerge, eyes closed, disappearing under the waters. His hair freed from the braid floated and dispersed like spilled ink as he stared into the moon across the undulating surface. Silence filled his ears, only interrupted by the peaceful throbbing of his heart and the erratic remnants of the rain. 

He felt weightless, pleasantly empty, unburdened. Peaceful.

“Kayn. What are you trying to wash away?" Rhaast’s voice flowed in the silence like velvet. The tendrils of his consciousness were always digging into the boy’s mind, unrelenting like hungry worms. But they felt different this time, embracing him instead of strangling and burning.

“Don’t you feel it, Kayn?” Sweetness coated each of the darkin’s words, hiding the true malice of his intentions. “The power coursing through your veins. Our power. It’s growing, all thanks to you".

“I feel it, I am stronger... , perfection is near.” Kayn’s thoughts replied as he still remained under the darkened waters holding his breath. His gaze was as dull as his thoughts, lethargic, trapped in the twilight of vigil. 

He tested his limits before asphyxia claimed him, his chest ached, he unconsciously sought a pain to awaken. “But my body…, The filth. Filth covers my body, nothing can cleanse it. Why.” Kayn’s eyes had closed as he felt the presence of the darkin engulf him like a cocoon, a red darkness, deeper than the shadows. 

“What are you ashamed of?” Rhaast continued to pressure him, almost like a weight to drown him further into the dark abyss of the waters, isolating him deeper into his power. “Is it the marks on your body? Or the guilt in your hands?”

“Guilt? My conscience is clear.” The phrase stirred an uneasy sensation in his soul. It was like a thorn, small but painful. But it was enough to reveal the oppressive power branching like a virulent tracery, infecting him again. 

Kayn’s eyes snapped open, the feeling was far too familiar. He was drowning. His body tensed, immediately sitting up. He emerged from the pond, gasping for air as if it was the first time he breathed in his life.

The boy heaved, a hand clutching his wet chest as his face was hidden behind a curtain of slick black hair. The peaceful bliss had been shattered by the strange worry, a crack on the walls of his consciousness, exposing two bloody corpses hidden beneath. Two bloody corpses. A male. A female. Water rippled around his waist, his naked body was cold but he couldn’t feel it. 

Kayn’s monstrous hand then moved, now pressed against his temple as he stared wide eyed at his misshapen reflection on the waters. He couldn't remember. A nascent uneasiness clutched his heart with needle-like claws. His pulse had changed, far from calm. It was a cold mixture of confusion and fear.

“W-what have you done?!,” the assassin whispered as his body and thoughts felt numb. The mindless calm had dissipated as he realized the last thing he remembered was the image of the two acolytes walking away, abandoning him, ignoring his existence.

“Where do you see the filth, then? Look at yourself”. Rhaast urged, his voice echoing inside Kayn’s head, impossible to ignore or to hide from. “What part of your essence is tainted?”

Kayn could answer many things, especially the corruption creeping over his skin, further than before. But the darkin had his claws sunken even deeper, so the boy did not see the ugliness, the sickness, the betrayal engraved in his own flesh. Instead, he could see the results: power, victory. The beauty of the being he could become, someone that could bring orders and nations to their knees, inspiring fear and reverence at equal parts. 

“Surrender to your selfish desires. Your _ true _ desires, your only desires. Gaze into the waters and tell me what you see”.

The image reflected in the surface shifted and molded, it became the embodiment of Kayn’s ambition. He saw his face surrounded by envious moonlight, gorgeous beyond humanity, features sharp and elegant, perfected by the shadow’s blessing. The marks of darkness anointed him like the absolute Master of Shadows and more. More. A god. A god of Shadows. Kayn was entranced by the image, his vanity, his obsession realized. The fear was sweetly forgotten, dissolving into the hallucination. 

“This is your calling. Remember the boundless pleasure of your fantasies.” How irresistible those lies were. How warm, those tendrils of raw power embracing him like the strings of a marionette. “Feel it, taste it. Rejoice in our ascension, Kayn!”

“Our ascension.” Kayn repeated, tempted but unsettled. Rhaast was never meant to ascend, his fate was to plummet into the depths of the abyss. Consumed, hollow, forgotten. But his words were so true, a poison delicately poured into his ears, contaminating his reason. It awakened a red spark running down his spine, forcing his fingers to twitch as a familiar sensation possessed him, the mindless freedom of ecstasy, the rapturous delight of his dreams. 

Kayn’s lips parted, wordless, his thoughts had been drenched in the liquid ambrosia. Whatever he couldn't remember, was no longer relevant.  

“Look at it, look at your destiny. Isn’t it beautiful? The world around you is insignificant, you have become everything, you have become a god.”

“Our ascension,” Kayn repeated again, fascinated, now free of doubt. His corrupted hand reached forward, the sharp ends of his claw touching the mirror of water, he couldn’t see the misshapen dark flesh. The jagged finger adoringly traced down the contours of his own perfect reflection. He helplessly continued to lose himself in the image of his divinity. As the whispering voice of his dreams returned to his ears.

_ Kill the mind. Free the mind _ .  _ Ascend. _ Feeling those words made him aroused, intoxicated, happy. They reverberated with a strange echo, one he had heard repeatedly in his dreams, sinking deeper than the Order’s original mantra. It was a message carrying so much more. 

His body understood, his body remembered.

“The fullness of my truth stands revealed”. 

The reflection rippled under the movement, it smiled back at Kayn, proud, perversely so, the embodiment of his future, a promise of his victory. For a moment, there was a glimmer of red at the bottom of those pale eyes, but Kayn could not see it, blinded by his own delusion. Neither he could see the glow emanating from his weapon, how Rhaast’s gaze fell so heavy and hungry over him.

“Reach for it and claim what is rightfully yours", words in his own voice flooded his mind, becoming his thoughts. “The time is now”.

The image waved, radiated by the moonlight, it reflected in the dulled surface of his eyes. A god beyond any mortal's imagination, beyond his Master's grasp. Like water swirling down a funnel, his attention was drawn to the divine face in the pond with renewed focus. He had never seen his face so beautiful, brighter and colder than the moon, so undeniably powerful. The long and lustrous hair like the wings of countless ravens. The Chosen… his Master’s Chosen?

Kayn stared vacantly at the reflection, they had become one. That face was his face, the shadows wisped around him caressing his hair like a black holy aura. He had stepped into a hazy nocturnal world. The darkness danced in waves, rippling around his naked body, worshipping him.

“Be freed of the yoke” The image in the waters replied. Kayn’s claw hovered inches above the surface was met by the other, the hand trapped within the mirror of water. 

It trespassed. 

The fingers intertwined with the illusion as if it had become a second living body. The ghost rose from the pond, dressed only with the droplets shimmering under the night’s glow. A body pale like moonlight crowned by inky black hair, slick and wet yet gracefully billowing around him like an aura.The figure took a step forwards, cornering Kayn against a large boulder he had used to meditate in the past (those brighter days now distant like a dream). 

It paralyzed his body like a cold and sweet poison. His own body free from the corruption of the darkin, purified by the shadows, radiating an aura of darkness as genuine as Zed’s, or even stronger. The pale figure under the moon was almost ethereal, divine, it was his reflection, different but unmistakable, like a fantasy. The being was majestic, darkness bent around him with reverence.

There was an equal amount of confusion and fascination, so transparent in his eyes. 

“It is beautiful”, words rolled mindlessly down his lips, he could not feel the warning of his dulled senses. He could not resist the obsessive attraction to his own image. The figure was as exposed as he was. Both nude in the solitude of the night, the pond rippling around his waist, but not around the other, almost as if he didn’t exist. But Kayn could not perceive it. Not when the icy lips claimed his own. 

It felt natural, an act of self-adoration, of vanity beyond madness. He was kissing the god of darkness, the shadow assassin -- who was not Zed, but no other than Kayn himself. The tongue warmed as the kiss deepened, they had the same taste, the same movements mirrored. 

“This is impossible”, Kayn whispered into his reflection’s lips, his gaze barely visible under the heavy eyelids. “How can you be real?”

The other smiled, compliant and malevolently sweet as he cupped his cheek, caressing down to his chin, accepting the corruption that marked Kayn as if he comforted a small and injured animal.

“I am a promise”, he said with a velvety voice, an enticing whisper that sent goosebumps down Kayn’s spine. It didn’t feel real, neither it did when he pressed chest against chest, and yet the young ninja’s body reacted, his pulse accelerated, his mind betrayed by his own longing.

“I am your victory”, the ghost said, before he captured his lips again. The tongue was slick and perversely skilled, it dominated him. The rubbing, the licking, the suckling, it coaxed his mouth to open and obscenely drink. It was as delicious as it was deranged.

“I must...be dreaming” He moaned into the kiss, the blush flaring his face. He felt so weak before the tattooed chest rubbing his own. 

Kayn was torn between the intimate attraction to his own body and that sinister sensation nagging at the back of his mind.

“We will be something this world has never seen”, the illusion grinned, breathless words that echoed into his mind. “Nor a man, neither a spirit, but superior to both of them. We will fulfill Zed’s ambition and he will bask in our glory!”

There was pleasure in that declaration, the excitement of success. In the same manner, his grip became tighter, his presence heavier. The more Kayn looked at it the more real it seemed, the sensations in his body only grew more intense.

“I am Master Zed’s Chosen”, the boy protested yet helplessly tempted by the idea. He had envisioned it the very moment he had accepted the mission to Vindor. The very moment he had claimed Rhaast. To ascent, to become the heir of his dark legacy, to surpass him and be recognized, adored... Had he planned it from the very beginning? The idea filled him with pleasure. It reverberated with his Master’s teachings…, lessons he didn’t remember, but were deeply ingrained in his brain.

To admit the darkness in his heart. To claim what he desired by any possible mean…, to feed on the weak and revel in their misery, to destroy all those who opposed him. To be worshipped like a god. To be freed, to be empty, blissful.

The ideas made him strangely aroused for they were helplessly connected to obedience and lust. He had learned with his empty mind, he had absorbed the twisted knowledge of his ‘lessons’ and he had been rewarded with unspeakable pleasure. 

The kisses stopped at his chin, coaxing Kayn’s head to hang backwards.. “More…, I want to hear more.” 

“Master Zed", the other whispered the name so sweetly as each of his luminous hands dragged Kayn’s wrists above his head, pinning them together. “He will deny us no more. He will see us, finally as equals, as something more. The Chosen, his Chosen. We will be what he has always wanted".

Leaning forward, the reflection whispered in his ear like he was sharing a forbidden secret. His cold breath hit Kayn's wet skin with the scent of the night and water.

“He will kneel before us. Why do you think he has been teaching us? Every lesson to be learned is a secret desire, a forbidden longing. He will squirm in our grasp, he will beg; we will give him everything he ever wanted and more".

He laughed in a way that felt both genuine and perverse and again loomed over Kayn like a shadow, a god the boy could not take his eyes off, filling all his world. And soon it would fill Zed’s too.

The hands which had been capturing Kayn’s wrists above his head slowly retreated, but they were not freed. A shadow copy was left behind where their fingers had once been, still pinning them both against the moonlit stone. The dark spiritual substance was as real as iron shackles, his body was spread open for the shadow assassin. The boy didn’t resist as he stared wide-eyed at the god of darkness. He was entranced by his words, his touch, his truth.

“No more craving for the things lost, no more Eye of Twilight. Only us, our shadows. Around him. In him". 

“How can we ascend when the darkin stain still corrupts my body?” His eyes were the ones of a decapitated head. Open, lost, still alive with the last remnants of a fading life. “Rhaast must...”  _ Die _ .

“Yes. His power will be our power. We are already stronger. Forget Rhaast, he is meaningless now, less than the shadow of a being, imprisoned, helpless.” Just like Kayn was, bound and exposed, so lost in his dreamland.

The dark fingers trod down Kayn’s chest, tasting him, tasting the tense muscles below, allowing him to burn in anticipation. Both thumbs stopped at the sides of his navel, drawing circles as he whispered through a smile.

“The darkin stain will be no more, only greatness left in his place, this body will be yours.”  The fingers continued down his abdomen, until they were lost in dark, pubic hair. He started petting the upper side of the boy’s penis, like one would do with a sleeping cat. 

“Look at me. Look at us. Look at your future. You are beautiful. The corruption means nothing for soon you will have victory in your hands!”

“You are the embodiment of my desire,” Kayn’s lips twisted with those words. As soothed and aroused as his mind was, his hunger had changed, he ached for more. Those inky black fingers had the inhuman texture of silk, it was a gentle tickle up and down a half-formed erection. But it wasn’t enough, a mild provocation.

Upon hearing those words, his reflection smiled fondly, darkly. The thumb rolled around the tip, teasing the foreskin as he would with his tongue. He continued to play with the boy’s penis as he rose, slithering against his naked chest. A pale hand cupped the side of Kayn’s face and leaned forward to almost kiss him, but instead whispered into his ear, like lovers sharing a dirty secret.

“I am all you crave for. I know what you want, I know how to give it to you. All you need to do, is ask for it. You will have the power of a god. Everything you want will be yours, even Master Zed. They will all serve us. But you must command…, for a silent king rules over none”.

The hand insisted only enough to tempt him, ghost strokes with the tips of his fingers, tickling the sensitive skin like moonlit feathers.

Kayn swallowed, helpless before the blush that progressively awakened his body with lust. He gasped, sucking his own breath as he tried to muster an answer. The other could inhale the heat, caress the goosebumps, feel the rippling of his muscles as the boy tried to control his desire despite the quiet pleas disguised like groans.

The pale hand tightened around the erection, obscenely pumping the length, spreading tides of warm pleasure up his body before stopping abruptly. Kayn shivered in discomfort as the sensation was denied, forcing him to hunger. 

“No orders, no commands. Is this silence what you seek? The lonely embrace of the night, the frustrated desire of a powerless being.” The shadow assassin taunted with fake regret.

“No”, Kayn gasped, his head hanging between his shoulders, eyes shadowed under the black and blue bangs. His lips twisted, his hips bucked, he struggled against the bindings which held his wrists crossed above his head.

“I want…, your worst. I want it. Like in my dream… I want to be lost in his madness.” That dream had become a memory, the most vivid one in his mind.

“So be it”. The ascended reflection silenced Kayn’s words with a slow kiss, chaste but poisonous. 

“The shadows are yours, the Order is yours”, he said, before he started to descend, smooth like silk, his lips caressing the corrupted carapace which had spread further across the boy’s chest. Kayn could feel the pressure where the lips had been, now replaced by the pale forehead as it rested on his inhuman shoulder, the long hair tickling the collarbone into goosebumps.

The first touch of that black tongue was electric as it rolled the soft, shapeless mound of his nipple, pressing it, forcing it to rise as he licked from below, warming. The slick and cavernous mouth knew exactly how to provoke him, his secrets, his weaknesses. The perverse movement was mirrored by those equally dark fingers which had claimed the right nipple as their toy.

Kayn squeezed his eyes shut, giving into the pleasure. Even in the darkness of his mind, he could still see the smooth nodding of the shadow assassin’s head as he continued suckling and teasing his nipples into hardened cherry hearts. The living reflection didn’t stop but instead grinned malevolently when he felt Kayn’s erection throb against his belly. 

“More”, the acolyte pleaded, his body was incapable of voicing the authority of the order.

“Beg,” the shadow assassin’s reply held the power Kayn lacked, even if he was the one obediently stimulating nipples, alternating one and another.

The boy clenched his jaw, silencing the groan bubbling in his throat. The pleasure pulsed hot in the twin spots of his chest, tides of incandescent red spread, cresting higher each time the black tongue swirled, teeth nibbled, lips slurped. And then they purposely stopped, forcing him to starve.

Three unforgiving minutes passed, Kayn heaved in his torture, wordless as the heat was progressively lost in the night. Pleasure was denied to him.

“Beg?” he whispered helplessly. His eyes opened again and saw the pale forehead against his corrupted shoulderplate and inevitably felt the tongue curl again around his nipple. Simultaneously, the dark fingers pinched the other. Kayn jolted, pulling the bindings, his back arching against the boulder. He was the one pressing his chest against those evil lips.

“Say it”.

“I beg you for more. More!”

“Your fate is sealed”, the shadow assassin continued to descend until he was kneeling before Kayn. The night air brushed his erect nipples now glistening with saliva. Darkness fell as the moon disappeared behind a few clouds, the cold substance coating the acolyte’s pectorals had become twin spots of living shadows, quivering and undulating slugs, black, warm and moist like the ascended assassin’s tongue. Soft, muscular tiny bodies that lengthened and contracted, showing him how real they were.

“What a dirty mind you have,” he taunted again, smiling from below. A white crescent smile inches above the swollen head of his penis. “Have you noticed? The hands and tongues of one single lover cannot satisfy you enough”.

“Obey!” Kayn yelped as the twin maws started squirming on his nipples. Their texture was obscene, filled with diminute and slick nubs that rubbed, pinched and licked just like hungry leeches would. They were relentless despite the boy’s moans and pleas, insatiable like nightmares.

The other looked up to him perversely, and once more there was a red glimmer at the bottom of his eyes. It was shadowed by his dark hair as he descended over his penis.

“As the Master commands", he whispered, lips pressed against the tip before taking it into his mouth, agonisingly slow.

His fingers crept and circled the base, forming a ring. A soft pressure was added as the other hand rolled the testicles in the smooth sack. It was a game, and Kayn was the favourite toy.

_ ‘Accept the twisted color of your soul. Give into your desires, you have the right, for nothing restrains the whims of a god’. _

The sucking continued, synchronized with the zealous teasing on his nipples. It was a strangely lukewarm cavern, damp and soft, the pleasure of his fantasies. The shadow could feel the wanton twitching against his tongue, the unbridled lust pulsing across the boy’s body like a reawakened fever. 

The ascended assassin was insatiable, almost to a cruel extent. All filled his ears, blending with the voiceless truths whispered into his mind: the lewdest slurping and suckling mixed with Kayn’s groans and the gutural heaving. 

That black tongue was unreal, it played with the foreskin and the slit with maddening finesse. The acolyte’s world had become disturbingly intimate, nothing existed beyond himself.

“And you still crave for more.” He exhaled, the wam breath caressed the erection coated in saliva. The shadow assassin was looking at him from below, his dark hair unfurled in the waters like a stain of weightless ink. He knew Kayn couldn’t reply, but he also knew he couldn’t deny. The boy’s body was aching for more, convinced his lust was unending. 

“Such depravity…, Zed will be fascinated”. Those two fingers capturing the base of his cock slid down as a perfect ring of shadows was left in their place. “You don’t want this to end. You want it to last forever”.

Again, there was no reply. Kayn's mind was cracking, his voice melting into a slur of incoherent moans. 

“Yes, exactly, as you command…, Master.” said the shadow assassin, the sneer was evident in those fake lips, pale like moonlight. That same hand returned to the engorged tip of his penis, rolling the thumb, pressing the slit where the precum dribbled in tiny gushes of pleasure. 

The black hand was soon coated in threads of slippery warm fluid as it perversely rubbed the sensitive head. That same hand slithered like a snake into the darkness below, taunting the perineum and then into the pink bud of his entrance. Kayn’s heated body shivered, his eyes blinded by the searing white jolt of pleasure. He writhed and tossed, forcing those dark fingers to bury deeper into his body until their teased the sweetest spot against his prostate. 

_ “Break” _ .

The fingers crooked, two of them jabbed at the soft canal just as the warm lips enveloped the anxious erection. The acolyte’s body gave into the waves of hot, tingling desire burning his nerves as the most vulnerable points were mercilessly stimulated. The slow and persistent sucking, at times accelerated, playing along the rising gasps, reading every inch of his crumbling mind, guiding him to obliterate his reason and be nothing but a sticky pool of honeyed pleasure.

He was trapped. The stimulation wouldn’t allow him to recover, but the ring around his cock denied him the exhilarating release. 

Kayn had become a puppet dancing between thrusts into those exquisite lips, the stabbing of those wicked fingers teasing his prostate, and the shadowy slugs hungrily sucking his nipples, now firm like tiny pebbles. 

Unsettling, embarrassing, it was an image of his own self driving him insane, completely drugging him with lust. He was being finger-fucked and milked into madness. 

Kayn arched and thrashed like a wounded animal, his hands shackled above his head, wrists bruised. His body manipulated by the other, electrified, raptured.

“ _ This is your true nature. Surrender to the bliss, surrender to the power. Give yourself, let me in _ ”.

The voice nailed into his brain, each word digging deeper. They could have been painful in another  time, if Kayn had been aware. But now, the torment they brought was as sweet as the fingers buried inside him and the lips torturing him.

“ _ I want to hear your screams _ ”.

“I want it...”,  Kayn muttered, moaned. His thoughts drifted beyond bliss into a mindless trance of pure, obedient ecstasy. He had forgotten what he resisted, and struggling only weakened him. The intoxicating river of pleasure slipped around his defenses, dousing his will, it was a passive surrender instead of an active submission. 

Rhaast could see it so clearly now, Kayn’s broken expression, the rolled up eyes, the hungry smile, the wanton drool oozing down the corners of his lips. It was such a pathetic sight, so amusing. He was so deep in his self-delusions that the darkin could devour him without the boy even noticing.

It would be so easy. But not enough. He wanted Kayn to realise the truth in his last moments. He wanted to see the horror and the desperation in his face as the blade sunk in his chest like roots into the ground. 

And what better than letting his Master be the driving hand?

“You will have anything you desire. You want to play with your Master. You want him to play with you.” The words were as delicious as the tongue swirling on his glans, as sweet as the fingers prodding his prostate. 

“Yes,” Kayn replied hungrily, blinded by the searing white consuming the insides of his head. 

“The world is yours, Zed is yours.” Depraved ideas were whispered into his mind again, his own voice promised him, and he believed.  

“Yes!” He was being guided by the pleasure, his reason fractured under the constant tides of electricity flooding his body, cracking under the tension of the denied orgasm. It that moment he could have accepted any truth. The repeated doses of lust and his fantasies had left his subconscious mind exposed like a malleable slab eager to be reshaped into a tribute to his boundless ambition. Rhaast could taste it, the bittersweet ambrosia of victory, the unique flavor of a mortal’s corrupted heart.

“Claim him”.

“Mine”. Kayn screamed as the ring of shadows imprisoning his erection melted. Its dark substance disappeared into the warm ropes of cum bursting out of the orgasm shattering his mind. The lips swallowed as much as they could. 

That same addictive bliss filled his brain again, cool fingers massaging his skull from the inside. His skin flushed in the afterglow, the rose color of his face mixed with his fever. It was a drug engulfing him whole. Starting at the tiny tip of his cock and spreading across his body, waves of pulsing arousal. The fluid which wasn’t swallowed by the other  dribbled down his thighs and dissolved into the pond.

_ Ours _ .

The sentence echoed in Kayn’s mind again, condemning him. He felt the icy lips of the shadow assassin seal with his own in a loveless kiss, it had the obscene taste of his own sex. The black tongue drank from him as both smiled. 

‘ _Only lust is left in your mind. That is all your need, all you are._ ’

Anyone who would look into that lake would only see Kayn, alone with his shadows.


End file.
